


Nightmares End

by Tierra469



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Disturbing Themes, Gay Sex, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Male Slash, Oral Sex, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-13
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-04-09 04:38:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 68,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4334186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tierra469/pseuds/Tierra469
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things become even more dire on the way to DC (season 5), and before the group is recruited by Aaron, a disturbing encounter on the road pushes Rick over the edge - and leaves Daryl with a terrible decision to make. His only choice is to separate Rick from the rest of the group in the dead of night. Luckily, they find temporary sanctuary in a small cabin - and in each other. As they endure illness, injury, attack and Rick's continuing struggle for sanity, Daryl finds himself confronting his feelings for Rick, and pondering Rick's feelings for him. When they reach Alexandria, can either of them adjust - and can their fragile new relationship endure? I do not own any of the characters in The Walking Dead, which is not my own invention (duh).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Nightmare Begins

The nightmare, when it came, was usually the same.  Daryl crept through the night-silent woods, damp leaves underfoot, shadows of hulking trees receding as far into the gloom as he could see. He was tracking someone, desperately following as fast as he could with a terrible sense of foreboding; a sense that nothing, for any of his people, would ever be the same. In a little clearing, he finally caught up to them—Rick, Carl and little Judith. He approached slowly, seeing Rick in the shadows, kneeling in the leaf litter. He could see Carl and the baby too, but they were lying down. Why were they lying down _there_ , in the dark, so far from the safety of the group? Why had Rick brought them out here to sleep? The children lay very still and close together, as if prettily arranged, and suddenly Daryl realized with horror that he was too late. Rick turned to him, still on his knees. The look in his eyes took Daryl’s breath away. Rick raised his gun, silencer on, and pointed it at Daryl’s head.

“Go back, Daryl,” Rick moaned. “Go back now.”

“No,” Daryl pled, stepping closer, “wait!” Then, as he watched, Rick turned the gun on himself, bit down on the barrel and pulled the trigger.

Daryl sometimes awoke shouting, sometimes with tears on his face. He would lay there trembling in the little bed, trying to get his bearings, until something—moonlight on the wall, tree limbs outside the window—would bring him back to the place he actually existed. It only took a moment.

By that time, Rick’s voice would come out of the darkness, from the other side of the room. “Daryl?...”

Hate rose up in Daryl’s throat like bile, then. Rage. Disgust. Sometimes he’d grit his teeth and answer, “’M fine, go back to sleep.” Sometimes he’d just turn toward the wall and seethe. Once in awhile, he’d tell Rick to go fuck himself. Rick never answered back, either way.

In the gray light of dawn, however, the hate dissolved. Then Daryl could see Rick for what he was—not the monster of his dreams, but a friend who desperately needed him right now. A friend who’d gotten trapped in the tar pit of despair, run out of choices, nearly made a horrible mistake… for which he was now enduring the consequences.

For Rick’s sake, Daryl would endure them too.

Daryl slipped his legs out from under the covers and swung them silently down to the floor, sitting up. The pine floorboards felt cold below his bare feet. No birds sang. Gazing blearily out the small window, he couldn’t tell by the dove-colored sky whether it was really early, or just foggy outside. Then it occurred to him, he’d nearly slept through the night. His stomach dropped and a cold fear suddenly shot through him like an electric current.

Shoving the hair out of his face, he quickly padded the three steps over to where Rick sprawled face-down on the room’s other twin bed. Despite the chill in the air, Rick had kicked all his blankets off and wrestled out of his t-shirt sometime during the night; Daryl remembered hearing him mumbling and moaning and thrashing in the wee hours. Now, however, he was sleeping peacefully, damp corkscrew curls sticking to his temples. All he wore—other than the sheet twisted around his ankles—were the too-big blue briefs they’d found inhabiting a drawer up in the loft room. They made him look like a gangly, pale child—albeit one whose feet dangled off the end of the bed.

Daryl reached out and laid a hand on his friend’s bare back, feeling him to be reasonably warm and dry, feeling the rise and fall of breath, assuring himself that he hadn’t failed completely.

The fever was gone, and Rick had slept most of the night, too. Maybe, just maybe, the worst was over. Daryl was afraid to hope. He sighed, bent to pick up the crumpled sheet off the floor, untwist it, and tuck it back over the other man. “Least keep this on ya,” he mumbled, then turned away.

He shuffled out to the small kitchen, filled the kettle with cold water from the tap and set it on the gas stove. Turning that knob and watching the blue flame ignite—not to mention using running water again—still hadn’t lost its novelty, after all that time trying to cook over the tiniest possible campfire in a hole in the ground, trying to purify every drop of drinking water. Nevertheless, he was having a hard time summoning any gratitude anymore. He stood there staring at the ring of flame until it became blurry; it took him a moment to realize that his view hadn’t changed, but his vision had. The tears spilled out of his eyes and rolled down his cheeks, and suddenly he was overwhelmed by the exhausting weight of it all—the lack of sleep, the dwindling food supply, the cold in the air, the frustration and terror of Rick’s rage, then his illness. Resentment. Loneliness.

He had become immune to loneliness on the road with Merle. Or at least that was the story he told himself. Really, it was probably just the pot and the booze that kept the loneliness at bay. When he’d finally found a real family, everything changed. Funny, how the end of the world seemed like the beginning of his life. Now, however, the loneliness was back with a vengeance. He reminded himself this was his choice, not Rick’s, but it was one he had to make—because of Rick. He had no one to talk to but Rick now, and while that once would have been comfortable, now it felt like a prison sentence. Or maybe like being with Merle again—without the pot and the booze. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could handle it.

“Fuckin’ stop _cryin_ ’,” he growled at himself, but the slow tears wouldn’t stop falling.

The crock of utensils on the counter beside him made a satisfying sound as it shattered against the cabin wall, metal utensils clanging and bouncing all over the room. He was still standing there with his head hanging down, wiping angrily at his eyes, when Rick came staggering out of the bedroom and leaned against the doorway. Without lifting his gaze, Daryl could see Rick’s bare feet and the ends of the blanket that he’d draped over his shoulders.

“What’s goin’ on?” Rick rasped, and Daryl glanced up at him through his curtain of hair, surprised that he was up. It had been four days.

“Nuthin.’ My arm slipped.” And Daryl stooped and began to pick up the spoons and ladles and such all over the floor, so Rick wouldn’t. “Watch out fer broken pottery,” he warned. “Set yerself down.”

He applied himself to making Rick oatmeal with some canned peaches mixed into it, and a cup of hot cocoa, and brought it to him where he’d curled up on the couch.

“Yer feelin’ a little better,” Daryl observed.

Rick took the oatmeal, but eyed the cocoa with consternation. “How ‘bout just a cup of cold water?” he asked meekly. Daryl nodded and fetched him one, setting it on the small table within his reach. Then he perched in the chair across from Rick, propped his elbows on his knees, and took a sip of the rejected cocoa. He eyed Rick wrapped in the blanket and nibbling the oatmeal, his face flushed, hair a wild mess, a week’s worth of beard growth on his jaw. He was lucid, and sitting up, and eating—Daryl had fully expected him to be dead by now. And if he were honest, he’d have to admit considering it might be a relief. Though he hated himself for considering it.

When Rick had first taken sick nearly a week ago, it had seemed like just a flu—headache, fever, nausea, chills. Not that Rick had given that litany to Daryl right away. He’d simply grown quieter through the day, then turned in early. Daryl had only become concerned when Rick slept through most of the next day. And he knew something was really up when Rick roused late that second afternoon and called to Daryl from the bed, groaning out a plea for water. When Daryl went to him, he was shocked to see Rick’s eyes glassy, his face flushed and sweaty with fever, his mouth twisted with pain. He was trembling all over.

“What the hell, Rick?” Daryl had murmured, wide-eyed.

“Feel like I’m burnin’ in hell,” Rick whispered. “I think this is it… I’ve got it…”

“ _Got what?”_ Daryl asked, but he knew damn well what Rick meant.

“This is it, man. It’s just like Jim said. My… my bones feel like glass. I feel like I’m cookin’. The nightmares… My fuckin’ head…”

Daryl held the glass of water out to him, but Rick seemed powerless to even sit up and take it, his hand shaking like a leaf. So Daryl sat beside him on the bed, tucked an arm around his shoulders, and lifted him just enough to drink half the glass of water, then gently laid him back down.

“I’ll see if I can find a thermometer. I know we got more Tylenol,” Daryl said, and scooted off to the bathroom.

He realized his own hands were shaking as he rifled through the cabin’s medicine cabinet, finding the pills and a small mercury thermometer. He refused to believe what Rick was saying. He couldn’t be right… could he? Right out of the blue – no bites or scratches?

Rick’s temperature was alarmingly high. Daryl squinted at the thermometer, wondering if it could be wrong. He wiped it off and tested it on himself, only to have it read normally.

He lifted Rick up again and made him swallow as many Tylenol as he dared— _hell, what good is your liver if your brain’s cooked?_ Then he sat down on the other bed and leaned forward to study the man. Rick threw an arm across his face, groaning.

“So you got a bad fever,” Daryl said. “Could be a lot of things. Could be flu. Some kinda infection. You don’t know.”

Rick was silent for a moment, then replied quietly, “Know what I deserve.”

Daryl blew a sharp breath out his nose, shoved himself to his feet and stalked off to the kitchen. He felt he had to do something, but what? He orbited in useless circles for a few moments, his mind whirling.  He glanced out the upper living room window to see the sun must have lowered beneath the horizon. It was a high window – one of the few they hadn’t blocked with curtains or blankets, to hide their movements from outside eyes, dead or alive. It had been at least 24 hours since Rick had eaten anything; he should eat, he had to be weak, Daryl decided. That Tylenol was likely to make him sick on an empty stomach, too. He set about opening one of their last cans of soup and pouring it into a pan to heat on the stove.

By the time he returned to the bedroom with the cup of soup, things had gone from bad to worse. Rick was shaking with chills… but shaking wasn’t quite the right word. Daryl dropped the cup on the dresser, switched on the small lamp and knelt next to the bed, cold fear squeezing his heart until it felt like a stone lodged in his throat.

He watched as Rick jolted as if from an electric shock, then drew into himself as his body was wracked by convulsive tremors. The tremors wrung him out like a sponge, cold sweat soaking the pillow and sheet. His body would still for a moment, he’d pant and moan and try to catch his breath, then another jolt would strike.

“Holy Christ,” Daryl muttered. “Rick… Rick!” He put a hand on Rick’s shoulder, another on his head, but Rick didn’t seem to notice him, lost in his body’s hell. “Hey,” he said, his voice breaking, “hey…” He grabbed onto one of Rick’s forearms, feeling the muscles tense and flex and shudder.

Helpless… he felt completely helpless to do anything but watch. Rick seemed to be freezing to death, but he knew the man was really burning up. Rick’s teeth chattered loudly, and as Daryl knelt there for some time, the jolting tremors became more violent and insistent. He tried one more time between the attacks, grabbing both of Rick’s forearms, speaking loudly and firmly.

“Rick! Look at me!” he begged. “What can I do?”

Rick’s eyes flew open and tried to focus on Daryl’s. “God-fucking-d…dammit-SHOOT-me!” he croaked.

“You ain’t DEAD yet!” Daryl argued, “I ain’t gonna shoot you – don’t say that. You’re gonna get through this.”

“P…please…”

“No! I ain’t gonna shoot you ‘til I got no choice.”

Rick groaned in despair through teeth clenched against the chattering, and Daryl decided to do the only thing he could think of. Jumping up, he dashed around the corner and climbed the spiral staircase up into the loft, into the master bedroom, and snatched the down comforter from the foot of the bed, returning with it. If Rick felt cold he would warm him up. If he was shaking too hard, Daryl would hold him still. Daryl flung the comforter over Rick, shucked his boots off, and crawled in under it, sliding over Rick’s sweaty body and taking up a position between his back and the wall. He did his best to tuck the covering around them both, then wrapped an arm and a leg around his friend and pulled the man against himself.

“Ok now,” he soothed. “It’s gonna be ok. You’ll see. This ain’t what you think. Come morning it’ll have passed.

Rick choked out a sound like a sob, quaking against Daryl’s chest. “Y… you got your knife?”

Daryl let go long enough to snake a hand down his thigh, feeling for the knife in its sheath. He unsnapped the guard, just in case.

“Yeah, man, I got it. We’re good. Nothin’s gonna happen. You just hang on.”

The long, dark hours of the night passed painfully slowly, one moment and one attack at a time, and Daryl couldn’t say just how long the worst of it lasted, but eventually, Rick’s shaking and later, incoherent muttering, stopped altogether. Daryl only knew this when he jerked awake and realized that all was silent and still, and Rick had gone limp in his arms.

“Shit,” Daryl breathed. “Rick?” He moved his free arm slowly away from Rick’s belly where he’d tucked it last, realizing they were both soaking wet. Rick didn’t move, and Daryl’s heart began to pound. His hand found the hilt of the knife against his thigh, and closed around it as he raised himself carefully on his elbow. He looked down at Rick’s face, still illuminated in lamplight, hair stuck to his cheek and forehead, and realized he could hear his friend breathing. “Rick?” Still no response.

He willed himself to relax a bit… couple deep breaths… and climbed back out of the bed. Everything was wet. It needed to be dry. He was so tired he could barely stand, but he peeled out of his wet t-shirt and jeans, swapping them for some sweats from the clean pile in the corner, grabbing the blue briefs for Rick. Then, flinging back the bedcovers, he rolled Rick to his back.

“Rick, c’mon man, wake up, you’re soaking wet. Lemme help you.”

Rick laid there like a ragdoll while Daryl stripped him naked, wrinkling his nose at the sickly sweet smell of sweat and piss.

“What the fuck… poor bastard…”

He bent and scooped Rick into his arms like a child, amazed at his slightness. He’d expected him to weigh more, but he really didn’t feel much heavier than... Daryl felt punched in the gut by the visceral memory of carrying Beth’s lifeless body, the eternal walk from the hospital… He quickly laid Rick down on the other twin bed, and with shaking hands and clouded vision, wrestled the briefs onto him before tucking him into the dry covers.

He stood there in the middle of the floor staring at Rick’s inert form, trembling, pinching the bridge of his nose, trying to breathe. He’d lost Merle. He’d lost Beth. And now it hit him—he was losing Rick. There had been nothing, after all, he could do to save him—not from himself, and not from this illness. Rick was dying in front of him, and all he could do was bear impotent witness. For a moment he pictured himself finally ending Rick’s misery, setting this place on fire in a blinding rage, flipping it the bird in honor of Beth, and stalking off into the darkness.

He knew he couldn’t do that.

Daryl crawled into bed with Rick for the second time that night, lying down behind him again, this time on top of the blankets. Should Rick re-animate, it would be easy to pin him down beneath the quilt. Daryl’s knife was now strapped around the thigh lying against the bedcovers, and he reached down and tugged it free, swinging his arm back up and sinking the blade’s tip into the log wall over Rick’s head with a _thunk._ Quick access.

He settled in to wait. He could hear Rick’s watch ticking on the nightstand, a metronome, beating in time with the blood rushing in Daryl’s ears, beating twice as fast as Rick’s slow breaths, half as fast as his fluttering heart, pushing the blood that pulsed under the two fingers Daryl pressed to his friend’s throat. Ticking. Ticking like the time bomb inside each of their bodies, waiting to be released at the moment of death.

With all the death that had surrounded him, this was the first time he’d ever had time to think about its approach—to actually hold a vigil at someone’s bedside. To say, perhaps, what ought to be said at a time like this. But what the fuck could be said now?

He moved his hand from Rick’s throat to rest on his shoulder, squeezing gently.

“You been a fuckin’ psycho the past few weeks,” he said, startled at the loudness of his voice. “I get it. I know why. Maybe I would be too. But I only wanted to help your stupid ass… after what you did.”

His voice broke, but who gave a fuck? Rick probably couldn’t hear him, and if he could, well then he could feel like shit for making Daryl blubber like an idiot. He deserved it. He sniffled and continued, because it felt good to get it out. “Most anybody prob’ly would’a left your ass, an’ maybe I’m just used to gettin’ treated like shit, but… I stayed ‘cause I respect you. For everything you did.”

Now he was on a roll, and the words kept coming. “When I first met you, I thought you were a fuckin’ asshole. Do-gooder cop, figured you’d be dead in a week if I didn’t kill you myself. But… you treated me different than I expected. You started listenin’ to me… gave me respect. No shit, you needed my help, but you didn’t have to trust me like you did.” Daryl squeezed his eyes shut, but the tears still leaked out.

“I didn’t mind savin’ your ass. You saved mine enough times. You saved everybody’s ass over n’ over. That… that time you came and got me and Merle at Woodbury… that was fuckin’ nuts. Then I walked away from you… was the hardest thing I ever did. I thought I had to do it. But I came back… all I could think about was ‘why did I leave Rick?’ He wiped his nose on the blanket, smiled wistfully at the memory. “Got back just in time to save your ass again.”

When I was with those stupid motherfuckers after the prison… all I could think of was findin’ you again. Then when we ended up at Terminus, trussed up like hogs in front of that trough, all I could think was “at least I’m goin’ first. At least I don’t have to watch him go. At least we’re together. So stupid, huh?”

Tears rolled sideways down Daryl’s face, across the bridge of his nose, wetting his temple, soaking into the pillow under his head. He could feel his nose running into his moustache, but he didn’t care. He was trembling all over with emotion, fingers digging into Rick’s shoulder, his voice rising as his throat constricted.

“You’re my fuckin’ best friend, Rick. I’m still here ‘cause o’ that. Cause I give a shit about you, and your kids. Cause I get why you tried to do it, even if I don’t like it and I couldn’t let you do it. And I couldn’t stick around to let it tear everyone apart. I told you all that… I told you… I know if you had more time, we could’a worked it out. We could’a gone back… but now you’re gonna die… ‘cause that’s what you fuckin’ want.”

\--------

Dying had been part of the plan.

The last day they’d spent with the others had been miserable, cold and wet, everyone walking and huddling under bridges when a downpour came. Late in the day, they’d stopped at a bridge high over a creek to share what little food they had left for the last meal of the day. It was when everyone’s pack was off and they were occupied in rummaging that the man and woman had leapt up, like trolls, from below the bridge abutment.

Daryl had heard Carl cry out and tried to get his crossbow up, but in the split second it took him to react, the man had Carl by the hair, a large hunting knife to the boy’s throat, and the woman had snatched Judith from his arms and was clutching the baby to her bony chest like a ragdoll. Judith whimpered a little, unsure exactly what to think about it all.

A quick glance around for Rick revealed his friend standing a few feet away, fingers hovering over his Colt, his eyes locked on the man’s face. Daryl had certainly seen that look before, and it didn’t bode well for these strangers.

“We don’t wanna hurt nobody now,” the man cried, his hair a wild, filthy swirl on his head, and his clothes even filthier. “We just want yer food. Then you get yer kids back.”

“You give us the kids back,” Rick growled menacingly, “and maybe we’ll let you live to find food somewhere else.”

“You ain’t in a position to argue now,” the man persisted. “Just put all your food in one of those packs and set it at yonder end o’ the bridge.” He nodded his head to the left.

Daryl peered around at everybody else, but they were waiting to take their cue from Rick. Then he noticed Abraham standing down the embankment by the brook, holding the back of the man’s head in his sights. He glanced carefully but repeatedly at Abraham, until he caught the soldier’s eye and got a crooked eyebrow from him. Daryl held a finger up surreptitiously. _WAIT._ Abraham must have been heading down for water and somehow the strangers didn’t see him. Daryl knew he was the only one who could, now.

“This is the last time I’m gonna say it. Let the kids go, and we won’t kill you today.”

“I want the baby,” the woman suddenly blurted tearfully.

Rick’s eyes narrowed.

The man glanced over at her, obviously irritated. “You cain’t have that baby. What the hell are we gonna do with a baby?”

“I gotta have this baby. He looks just like Bobby!”

“You ain’t takin’ no baby.”

“You cain’t stop me!” she cried.

“Goddamn it Irene, you ain’t takin’ the fuckin’ baby!” the man screamed, and Judith began to howl, and suddenly, the woman was dangling her over the side of the bridge by her coveralls.

“If I cain’t have this baby, then ain’t nobody else gonna have him!” the woman wailed hysterically at her husband.

Rick’s lips curled into a snarl, his eyes wide, his whole body on a hairtrigger, but perhaps only Daryl noticed that he’d begun to shake.

Carol suddenly stepped forward to stand beside Rick, holding her hands up, speaking soothingly and kindly to the woman. “You can have the baby. It’s ok. What do we need with her anyway? Here…” Carol knelt down and dumped out the contents of Rick’s pack, snatching up diapers and Vaseline and a bottle half full of formula and stuffing them back in. “Now please make her stop crying before she draws walkers.”

The woman’s face lit up in idiotic delight, and she hauled squirming, screaming Judith back over the railing to clutch her again. Her husband flushed purple with rage, turning to the woman, suddenly waving his knife in the air, and Daryl took a deep breath and gave Abraham the thumbs-up.

Chaos ensued as the man crumpled to the ground, dragging Carl down with him and slicing his cheek open, and the woman began to scream. Daryl jumped forward to help Carl, and saw Carol reaching out to the woman… 

_“Oh honey it’s ok”_

…but it wasn’t ok—she was holding the woman so Rick could yank Judith from her arms, then Carol took Judith and Rick lifted the woman as if she weighed no more than the fluttering dress she wore and flung her over the rail, to the rocks below.


	2. Exodus

Rick wasn’t ok after that. He made sure Judith was unscathed. He made sure Carl was alright, and someone found a butterfly bandage in their pack and applied it to the nasty slice on the boy’s face. Then they all left that spot as fast as they could. But Rick wasn’t ok, Daryl could tell. He walked alone, looking pale and shocked, not talking to anyone. Daryl tried to approach, spoke his name softly, but Rick shook his head and stared straight ahead, and Daryl moved off. Carol carried Judith, and Michonne slid a protective arm around Carl. Daryl heard a few people murmuring about Rick as the day wore on toward evening, wondering what to do; they figured a few bites to eat and a good night’s sleep might help. It would have to. The group would stop again a few miles down the road at some abandoned cars, eat their meager dinner and turn in just at dark, exhausted.

Daryl bedded down that night in the second seat of a Suburban, wrapped in a thin blanket against the chill that was beginning to creep into his bones. The cold had woken him up, but he was trying to get back to sleep; there had to be a couple hours yet until dawn. He turned over, pressing his back into the vinyl seat, sliding his icy hands between his thighs to warm them. Sasha was curled, quiet, in the third seat behind him, and Noah slept sitting up in the driver’s seat, snoring, an old sleeping bag draped over him. Carol, reclined in the passenger seat, had her knees drawn up and looked cold, despite the two sweaters and a blanket on her. Daryl could see goosebumps on her exposed forearm, glowing in the moonlight.

The van parked beside them held Abraham, Rosita, Eugene and Tara, Glenn and Maggie. Rick and his kids were crashed in a Subaru Outback parked on the other side of the van. As Daryl sat up slowly, he could just see the front of the car. He quietly unwound the blanket from his shoulders and leaned forward to drape it over Carol. He wouldn’t sleep anymore tonight, he decided—might as well go start watch early.

Just as the thought solidified, he saw Michonne get up from her crouch by the Subaru, stretch, and head into the woods. She didn’t look troubled, her Katana still sheathed – maybe she had to take a leak, he decided. As soon as she got back, he’d get out and swap with her.

No sooner had Michonne disappeared, then Daryl saw another movement. Rick opened the driver’s side door of the Subaru and stepped out, walked around the car and opened the passenger door with barely a sound. Daryl could see him shaking Carl awake, beckoning to him. His movements were calm, but insistent, and Carl got out of the car; Daryl could just barely discern a puzzled look on his face. Rick was gesturing to Carl to be quiet. Daryl felt beside him for the crossbow, checked his pocket for the Glock. Should he get out and join them?

Then Rick did an even stranger thing—he opened the back door and quickly but carefully lifted a sleeping Judith out, and gesturing to Carl to follow, he propped the baby on his hip and walked off into the night, the opposite way Michonne went.

Daryl frowned, completely confused now. Rick’s disappearance in the dark—with both kids—made no sense. And given the events of the day, it made him very uneasy. Something felt wrong. He opened the door as quietly as he could; Noah and Carol startled, but his whispered “s’ ok” put them at ease again. He made sure not to bang his crossbow on anything as he removed it from the vehicle, closed the door with barely a click, and hustled off in Rick’s direction.

Wet leaves muffled his footsteps as he padded quickly but stealthily into the woods, straining his eyes to see any movement ahead. The moon was at the third quarter and patchy clouds scudded across the sky, a breeze freshening as a cold front moved in behind the rain. The wind in the remaining leaves on the trees masked sounds as well; Rick would not hear him following, but neither could he hear Rick and Carl walking ahead. Finally, after several interminable minutes, he caught a glimpse of a small flashlight beam and figures moving through the trees—they were paralleling the road, walking purposefully. Daryl stepped a little quicker, moving from shadow to shadow, close enough now to hear their voices, but not what they were saying. Carl sounded plaintive, tired, pleading. A little too loud. Rick’s voice was a soft, monotone murmur.

A few more minutes’ hike, and Daryl began to hear the small creek they’d crossed just before arriving at their evening stop, where it rushed and tumbled noisily over some rocks near the road culvert. Rick walked Carl straight to the water’s edge and they stopped. He kissed Judith and carefully sat her down on her small blanket on the cold ground, though she began to fuss a little, and then he handed Carl the small flashlight. Daryl took up a spot behind a large tree, as close as he dared, to watch—but Rick had never even looked back at all, which was surprising. Daryl felt cold all over, the hair on the back of his neck standing up—but it wasn’t from the ambient temperature. This was wrong, strange, but he couldn’t as yet say why. What the hell were they doing? Why had Rick so obviously evaded Michonne? And why bring Judith? Was he afraid to leave her with anyone else?

Rick crouched on the stream bank, pulling Carl down beside him. He put his arm around the boy and gave him a quick squeeze, then Carl trained the flashlight on the water, and Rick flipped over a couple rocks, pointing at something moving, swimming away. Carl leaned over further, put the flashlight in his mouth, reached down to flip some more stones.

Daryl scowled. _Crawdad fishing? Is that what they were doing? In the middle of the night?_ It made no sense, until Rick slowly stood up, un-holstered his gun—silencer on—and leveled it at the back of Carl’s bent head.

Daryl’s heart stopped, but his reflexes didn’t fail him. “Rick!” he shouted, leaping out from behind the tree as if he’d just now found them and covering quickly the ground between them. “Hey, you gotta come quick, we need you.”

Rick whirled around to face Daryl, pointing the gun straight at his chest. In his peripheral vision, Daryl could see Carl standing up and turning to face them, the flashlight beam suddenly blinding in the dark. Startled, Judith began to cry.

“Hand me that light,” Daryl barked at Carl. “Grab yer sister, we’re headin’ back to the road.”

Carl began to comply, hurrying over to give Daryl the flashlight, but Rick calmly stopped him from going further with a hand out in front of the boy. Daryl couldn’t help but notice that the other hand holding the gun was shaking badly as he lowered it.

“Dad…” Carl asked quietly, as if Rick were the child, “Don’t you need to go?”

“Daryl, we’re busy right now,” Rick said in a low, careful voice. “You need to head back and tell ‘em we’ll be along in a minute or two.”

“It’s gotta be now, Rick,” Daryl insisted. He took a step to the side and bent over, intending to scoop up Judith, but Rick stepped up on him aggressively, forcing him off balance in his crouch, and he had to backpedal not to fall over. He had the sudden sense that _this is it, it’s now or never—_ and lurching back to his feet, he used that momentum to carry him forward, throwing his whole body into a haymaker to the side of Rick’s head.

Rick crumpled to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

“Shit!” Carl cried. “Dad! Daryl, what the hell are you…”

“Damn, I slipped!” Daryl lied quickly, and dropped to squat at Rick’s side. “Rick…” He shook the man, but he was clearly a TKO. He looked up at Carl, whose pale skin nearly glowed in the rippling starlight reflecting from the creek. The boy’s wide, scared eyes met his. “Take your sister and get back to the cars. I got yer old man. Go on now.”

“You need help? Is he ok? I don’t have my gun on me…”

Daryl picked up the gun lying near Rick’s hand and passed it to Carl. “He’ll be ok. I just clocked ‘im pretty good. I’ll bring ‘im along.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.” Daryl nodded at Carl for good measure, and Carl nodded back, then grabbed the whimpering baby and hurried back the way they’d come.

Daryl looked back down at Rick, splayed on the damp ground, and hung his head. He took a couple of deep breaths to calm himself, let the tips of his fingers dangle to brush Rick’s chest. If he hadn’t come along…

With a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, Daryl imagined the gun going off, and Rick catching his son’s body before it could plunge into the brook. He would have laid him down carefully on the bank, then turned to little Judith and taken her life before he had time to think twice or to frighten her. After that, Daryl had no doubt that Rick would have lain down beside his children’s bodies, looked up at the sky for the last time, and blown his brains out.

Daryl had choices, but none of them were good. If life was a game of chess, this was a fuckin’ checkmate. The king was doomed. If Daryl pretended nothing had happened, and he hadn’t seen the gun, maybe Rick would have a change of heart by morning. He thought of Andrea, of Beth, of Tyreese—they had all hit that wall of despair at one point, and pushed on through to the other side. Maybe this was a fluke—a one-time suicidal lapse born of the desperate horror of that afternoon. Then again, Rick was nothing if not stubborn, determined and cunning, and chances were good that if he wanted to, he would just find another place and time to try again and succeed. Then it would be on Daryl.

If he brought Rick back to the group under threat of exposing him… it could happen again anyway. And it would still be on Daryl. Daryl didn’t think he could handle the strain of keeping such a secret from the group and watching Rick and his kids 24/7 all alone. People would notice something was up. Carl especially.

What if he told the others? Could they help Rick? Problem was, he wasn’t just a danger to himself. Making a decision to put Rick down, leave him behind or separate him from his kids would tear Rick and his people apart… and that would be on Daryl, too.

And what exactly did Carl know about what had just happened? Would he figure it out? Daryl didn’t want to find out.

He realized that Carl was likely to tell Michonne where he was and that Rick was down, and she would venture out to meet him. Could he trust Michonne with what he’d seen? He wanted her advice, but yet he didn’t want to burden her. Just sharing the misery hardly seemed fair.

There was really only one thing to be done. Daryl took stock of himself—he had his crossbow, gun and two knives, but no food or water bottle on him, no blankets or first aid supplies. He went through his pockets, fingering the usual crow’s cache—couple cigs, a lighter, a pencil stub, a fishhook—ow, and some line, a shiny rock, couple bandaids, some zipties, a fragment of folded map, batteries, tinfoil, tiny flashlight. Rick had a similar collection and his Leatherman, and Daryl had given his gun to Carl. If he was going to do this, it had to be now. No going back to the cars. No saying goodbye.

With the pencil stub, he carefully scrawled a note on the back of the map: _Meet you in DC. D & R._ and tucked it under one of the rocks Carl had lifted out of the brook. It would be obvious enough. He hoped it was true.

Then he zip-tied Rick’s wrists together behind his back, sat the man’s body up, and threw Rick over his shoulder like a sack of grain, struggling to his feet.

The sun was just beginning to rise when Daryl figured they’d traveled three or four miles from the cars. Rick groaned and cursed, and Daryl staggered to a stop on the hillside, bent over, and rather gracelessly dropped Rick’s body to the ground. He plopped down next to him, panting and shaking with exhaustion. Rick was surprisingly light, but even so, carrying him several miles up hill and down dale had worn Daryl to the bone. He needed water, and was wishing he hadn’t already eaten that stale granola bar he’d pocketed the previous morning.

Next to him in the leaves, Rick began to struggle. _“What the fuck?”_

Daryl eyed the bruise beginning to show on the side of Rick’s head. “Head hurt?” he asked softly.

Rick managed to push himself into a sitting position, his arms still behind his back. He looked around, bewildered, then over at Daryl—and understanding dawned in his eyes.

“Daryl… what’d you do?”

Daryl was quiet a minute, fiddled with a tear in his pants. “Thought you needed a little getaway,” he finally murmured, meeting Rick’s gaze again.

“Where are we?”

“Away. Away from everybody else. Away from your kids. For a while.”

“My kids…”

“They’re safe. They’ll stay that way.”

“Nobody’s safe,” Rick blurted.

Daryl sighed, looked out at the forest, tried to think about where to go next, now that Rick could do his own walking. They could head downhill, try to hit another road. A couple country houses would be ideal for foraging.

“Let me go,” Rick demanded.

“Naw, ain’t gonna do that yet,” Daryl replied.

“Lemme go, Daryl…” Rick was struggling against the zipties, but making no headway.

“So you can do what, Rick?”

“You fucking asshole, let me go!” Rick roared in frustration.

Daryl stood up and backed off as wild-eyed Rick strained and growled and thrashed against the restraints for a few moments on his knees, panting and grunting, and then tipped himself over and quickly tried to bring his arms back around his legs. Daryl walked back over and planted a knee squarely on Rick’s flank to stop him.

“I saw what you were gonna do by the creek, Rick,” Daryl said firmly, but not unkindly. “Couldn’t let it happen. Now we gotta deal with it.”

Rick fell silent and still, his eyes closing… and what came out of his mouth next was a despairing animal howl. When he ran out of breath, he filled his lungs and let out another, and another, until finally his voice left him and he lay panting and subdued, curled like a dead armadillo in the dirt. The fight and the light gone from his eyes.

Daryl stood there blinking down at him for a minute or two, then slowly reached down, grabbed an arm, and brought him to his feet. “Best get outta here now,” he said as calmly as he could. “That prob’ly drew walkers from six counties.”

*****

Rick didn’t die—not by the creek, and not in the little twin bed in the cabin.

The next afternoon after Daryl’s deathbed vigil, Rick’s eyes fluttered open and he asked Daryl brokenly for a drink of water. And now here they were, a day later, sitting across from each other like they’d just had a goddamn slumber party. Daryl watched Rick eat his oatmeal slowly and determinedly, and when he’d thoroughly cleaned the bowl, he continued to hold it and stare into it, his shoulders sagging, and Daryl sensed something coming.

“Y’know,” he finally murmured, not looking up, “There ain’t words for what I’ve been…”

Daryl sat up straight, fingers tightening around the mug handle until they whitened.

“You’ve been so good to me, an’ I… I’ve been an asshole. A fuckin’ animal.” He glanced up at Daryl, his face dark with disgust. “You… you didn’t deserve any of this shit. I didn’t mean any of the stuff I said or did to you. You gotta know that…”

Daryl nodded solemnly, studying Rick’s face for a lie and not finding it, hiding with his own unreadable expression the hope beginning to take hold in his heart. He’d heard this kind of bullshit before… heard his own pa say it to his ma. Maybe he even meant it at the time, but it didn’t mean nothin.’ But Rick… Rick wasn’t the kind to say something he didn’t mean.

“I just lost myself there,” Rick murmured. “I lost hope for us all. I thought giving up was the right thing. I thought Lori was right, maybe—that this wasn’t a world for kids anymore. That death would be kinder than dragging them through any more hell. Then when you hauled me off… I wanted to hurt somebody for what happened. And you wouldn’t let me hurt myself.”

Daryl thought about the sixteen days of hell he’d endured before Rick fell ill. Rick swung like a pendulum between insane rage and wretched despair, and Daryl doggedly endured being elbowed, sucker-punched, cursed and spat upon. Besides having to watch his own back, he was on constant suicide watch, hiding guns and knives and occasionally wrestling and choking Rick into submission, tying him to trees and bedposts to protect them both. He’d done his best to ignore both the nightly sobbing and the daily assault of vicious invective.

_Fucking ignorant inbred hillbilly… Useless piece of shit… dumbass redneck hick_

He’d heard it all before, it was nothing new… but from Rick’s mouth it was all shocking and stung like a hive of bees. It brought him back to his childhood, cowering under the bed while his old man tore up the room during another three-day bender.

But it didn’t break him. And he’d learned something about himself to boot: even if Rick thought those things about him, it might hurt, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t believe them anymore.

Daryl lifted his chin and looked at Rick through narrowed eyes. “You tryin’ to apologize to me?”

Rick sighed like someone had let the air out of him, set the bowl carefully on the table, and turned fully to Daryl, lifting his head. “Yeah, I am. I’m sorry.”

“What changed?”

“What changed?” Rick’s eyes wandered around the room, coming to rest on the slice of sky in the upper windows. “I tried to drive you away and you stayed. You saved me from myself and maybe you saved me from the fuckin’ grim reaper—I don’t know how—but we’re still here, and that’s gotta mean somethin’. I thought I was gonna die… I _knew_ I was gonna die… but you didn’t give up.”

Rick’s voice broke, and a tear leaked from the outer edge of his left eye.  He turned his gaze again on Daryl. “You were brave and I was a fucking coward… I gave up. I gave up back there. I gave up again two nights ago. But you didn’t, and here I still am, and… and that’s gotta mean something, right?”

Daryl bit his lip, nodding slowly, still trying to hide the emotions that were knotting in his throat. Rick’s blue eyes welling with tears were burning a hole through his damn soul.

“So,” Daryl said carefully. “What do you wanna do about it?”

He watched the question galvanize Rick, transform him in moments into someone he once again recognized.

“I wanna do what I have to, to make it right,” he replied. “Right with you, right with the group, right with… oh God… right with my kids… Carl. Whatever I have to do.” Rick ran his fingers shakily through his dirty hair, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, a look of grim determination settling in on his features.

“Best get right with yerself, too,” Daryl added softly.

Rick nodded. “I will. Somehow… I will. Feels like I finally hit bottom. Only way to go is up… right?”

Daryl snorted, and found he could no longer keep the smile from his face. He tried looking down to hide it, but it came nonetheless. He glanced up at Rick to see him staring, a bemused eyebrow in the air, and he suddenly launched himself across the floor and onto the couch, slugging Rick sharply in the shoulder, then snatching him into a bearhug.

Rick hugged him back, when he could get his arms out from under Daryl’s biceps.

“I’m gon’ get you back there, Rick,” Daryl promised, his chin resting on the wool blanket covering Rick’s shoulder. “We’re gonna make it to DC and find ‘em all there, me and you. As soon as we can travel. We’re gonna find Carl and Judith. Carol. Michonne. Glen and Maggie. Everybody. You’ll see.”

Just saying their names felt like a promise, a prayer, a litany of everything holy. He felt Rick sigh in his arms, and suddenly he felt alive again.

All that day he couldn’t sit still. He decided to clean out the composting toilet, wash the tub, re-inventory their food. He even shoved their soiled sheets and clothing into the little washing machine, appreciating all the while the relative luxury they were living in – thanks to this little off-the-grid, solar-powered cabin that had been such a godsend.

Rick, meanwhile, napped and read on the couch, and complained occasionally (with a little smile) that all Daryl’s activity was exhausting him. Daryl insisted that he rest and regain his strength, and because Rick didn’t protest, Daryl figured that the illness had really left him frighteningly weakened.

He wanted to do something to lift Rick’s spirits, so after cleaning the tub, he took the chance on the hot water heater being able to fill it. The last few days had been cloudy, but having sussed out the workings of the solar battery system early on, he figured there was enough juice available to create a warm bath. He perched on the edge of the clawfoot tub, dangling his fingers in the steaming water as it rose higher.

His gaze wandered around the room and settled on the small framed photo on the shelf above the sink. He could just see it with the light coming in from the skylight overhead. It was a photo of two men—the guys, he supposed, who built this place and probably used it for a weekend getaway from the city. Their presence was everywhere in the cabin—in the many photos scattered on end tables and hung in careful arrangements, the funky book collection, the I-pod loaded with music, the strange gourmet spices Daryl couldn’t identify, the good-smelling soap in the bathroom. In the many jars of red pepper jelly somebody had canned and stored in the pantry. In the clothing and other items they left in the drawers and on the shelves upstairs in the master bedroom—what Daryl thought of as the “love loft.” The men, Nick and Tony, were handsome, fit, a little gray around the temples, and obviously a couple. He wondered why they weren’t here—such a perfect place to survive an apocalypse. Perhaps they’d been trapped in the city. Or perhaps when the end of the world came they were off in Shanghai or London or Paris or some such place; they obviously liked to travel. He thought of them often, of their life together before the turn, of where they might be now if they survived. Of what they did upstairs in the love loft together, in that big bed. Sometimes he talked to them, when he thought Rick couldn’t hear. He did believe in ghosts, and he knew that if it was him in those photos, and he was dead, this was the place he’d haunt.

The door creaked behind him, making him jump, and Rick was standing there looking at him. “Taking a bath?” he asked.

“No, you are,” Daryl said. “Almost ready.” He leaned over to twist off the faucet, and when he turned back, Rick was inside the room, hanging the blanket on the back of the door, leaving him in just the baggy blue briefs that sagged low on his slim hips.

“That’s real nice, thanks,” Rick said with a soft smile, turning to Daryl. “I sure as hell could use one.”

Daryl stood up slowly, forcing himself to look at Rick’s face as he rose, and giving him a little nod, then hustled out of the room before Rick could say another word. He tried to pull the door shut behind him, but that was the problem with this door—the cabin had settled a bit and the door wouldn’t latch. In fact, it swung open a bit anytime someone walked by. Apparently, that hadn’t bothered Nick and Tony.

Daryl went back to the kitchen and busied himself making lists of foods they needed and what they already had, but somehow his mind wouldn’t focus. He kept thinking of Rick in the bathroom. He hadn’t gotten into the tub yet, and when Daryl stilled and listened, he realized he could hear the drag of Rick’s (Tony’s?) razor across skin. Rick was shaving at the sink. Daryl stepped out into the dim hallway, avoiding the squeaky floorboard, and glanced at the bathroom doorway. Door ajar about five inches, he could just see Rick standing there, blue briefs gone, peering into the mirror. The cheek of his ass flexed as Rick leaned forward and tilted his head back to shave his neck. Daryl stood there transfixed and watched his friend finish shaving and rinse his face, then turn toward the tub and slowly climb in. Rick lowered himself into the water carefully and with a low moan of pleasure, leaning back and draping his arms over the edges of the tub.

That moan went straight to Daryl’s crotch, and he tore himself away from his position by the door and staggered into the living room—stepping on that squeaky floorboard. He flung himself onto the couch, curling into a ball and burying his face in a pillow. He thought he’d gotten beyond this. Rick was his friend, his brother, he loved Rick, but not like THAT. It couldn’t be like that. He’d made a pact with himself a long time ago—at Hershel's farm—that no matter how attracted he was to Rick, he would NOT let it be known, nor would he act on it. He would bury it like they’d buried the bodies of their friends—as deep as they could dig in the stony ground, with rocks piled on top. He could not let his dick interfere with his survival, nor, he felt later, that of his adopted family. What’s more, he had no doubt then that Rick did not, and would not ever, feel the same way about _him_. Never mind that Rick had Lori at the time, and it appeared that Rick enjoyed pussy and not prick. Never mind that they were all living on top of each other and that everybody was watching—and talking about—everybody else’s business 24/7. He just couldn’t imagine Rick reciprocating even if Rick were a flaming faggot, because Daryl was not, and would never be, in Rick’s league. Even if Carol said he was every bit as good as Rick and Shane, that didn’t mean it was true. She didn’t know the half of what he’d done, how he’d lived.

So he’d pushed his feelings down deep, and when Rick gazed at him with those intense blue eyes and asked his opinion… asked for his help… thanked him and praised him… told him he needed him… Daryl just screwed that lid down tighter. He kept thinking the intensity would fade, that one day he’d care about Rick the same way he cared about Carol or Glenn—but he was still waiting for that to happen. Meanwhile, he allowed himself to become Rick’s protector and shield, his confidante, his right-hand man. He allowed himself to stand and sit close—because that’s what a right-hand man does—and to indulge in the occasional touch, to the elbow, the belly, the small of Rick’s back. Just to reassure Rick that he was there, watching and listening and ready. Rick seemed to be thankful for it, and Daryl told himself that was enough. He had Rick’s back. He always wanted to have Rick’s back, whether that meant saving him from a walker, or saving his newborn daughter from starvation. Or saving him from himself.

Merle had seen it immediately—all of it—and it made him livid, for some reason Daryl couldn’t fathom. Merle never could see what a huge fuckin’ hypocrite he was. He told Daryl Rick was using him, and maybe it was true. But Rick wasn’t using him _THAT_ way, and Daryl would make sure he never did.

It was only natural that Daryl tried to save Rick from himself that night by the brook. But it was NOT natural, he told himself, that just when things were starting to look up again, his feelings had somehow escaped from their prison cells and were threatening to riot.

He lifted his head from the pillow and was met again by the smiling faces of Nick and Tony, in a framed photo on the end table. Furiously, he slammed the photo face-down onto the table. “Shut the fuck up n’ leave me alone,” he growled.

Suddenly, the confines of the house, made worse by the window coverings, felt very claustrophobic. He stood up and craned his neck to see out of the upper windows, and lo and behold… the sky was full of snow.

“Holy shit…” He ran to the back door, the one that opened toward the hillside, and opened it carefully. The world outside was silent, muffled by the fluffy, falling flakes. About a half-inch had already settled on the cold ground.

“Rick! Hey, Rick!” he called, bursting into the bathroom, giddy as a kid on Christmas morning. “It’s snowin’! I’m gonna go huntin’! It’s fuckin’ perfect!”

Rick had startled from some watery daydream—or perhaps he’d fallen asleep again—and blinked up at Daryl wide-eyed from the tub. “You… you want me to come?”

“Shit no, you’ll be ok here, won’t ya? You won’t be much good. I won’t be long.” Daryl scooted out of the room, glad it was too dim to see into the bathwater, and began manically preparing—putting on extra layers, finding his backpack, checking it for emergency supplies, adding a little food and water, a flashlight. He had his knife on him, but he’d have to fetch the crossbow, pistol and a length of rope from their hiding place. He went to the back of the kitchen, and popping open the trapdoor to the crawl space, he ducked his head down and reached back toward the wall to pull the duffle bag out of the floor joists. He took what he needed and put the bag back.

When all was ready, he went back to the bathroom, this time knocking at the doorframe before entering. Rick had obviously washed, his hair wet and hanging in dripping ringlets, the room fragrant with orange-clove soap.

“I’m ready to go,” Daryl announced.

The way Rick looked up at him made his stomach knot. “So… you just gonna leave me here like this?”

Daryl blinked at him. _Oh._

“What if something happens while you’re gone? You gonna tie me to the bedpost like walker bait again, or are you gonna leave me a weapon?”

Rick slowly stood up, and Daryl froze, unable to keep his eyes from following the rivulets of water that were pouring off his friend’s body, wending their way through Rick’s forest of curly chest hair, to merge with the larger rivers running down his belly and thighs.

“How ‘bout a towel?” Rick asked after a moment or two of awkward silence, and Daryl quickly snapped out of his daze and grabbed one off the shelf beside him, handing it to Rick, ducking his head to hide the sudden flush on his cheeks.

He left the room in flustered silence and went out to the pile of supplies by the door. They only had one gun, and Daryl was unlikely to use it. He could leave it with Rick—couldn’t he? His gut said the suicide watch was over. A handful of times in the last two weeks, he’d gotten up at dawn to hunt small game, leaving Rick tied to the bedpost alone for a few hours. He’d tied him up every night before his illness just so he could sleep and get some quality time in the bathroom. At first it was a nightly wrestling match resulting in bruises, scratches and a black eye, but soon Rick must have decided it wasn’t worth the fight and resigned himself to the bondage.

Gun in hand, Daryl stood up and turned around, startled to see Rick in the towel standing right behind him. “Here,” he said softly, holding the weapon out to Rick. “I’m trustin’ you to be here and alive when I get back.”

Rick took it without hesitating, checked the clip on it. “Do we have any more ammo?”

“Nope.”

Rick nodded solemnly. “Come back soon.”


	3. The Hunt

Daryl promised to return within an hour of sunset, and set out, with only a couple hours of daylight left.

The cold air felt clean and fresh, and walking in the forest soon cleared his head as it always did, allowing him to lose himself in the hunt, in the flow of life—in simply being. He headed out across the ridge that the house perched on, sticking to the high ground, knowing deer would be heading downhill to find water and food as twilight approached. After walking for some time, he came across a couple sets of tracks heading downslope at an angle, and began to follow. The snow on the leaves muffled his steps, the prints appeared fresh, and his anticipation was electric, even after tracking the deer for over a mile. He seemed to be just steps behind these animals. Finally, the slope leveled out, he crossed a two-lane road, and the tracks led him into an old pasture. He paused just inside the trees and surveyed the scene. Three does stood in the field, pawing through the snow to get at the remaining grass beneath. A yearling nibbled at a shrub at the forest’s edge. Blood pounding in his ears, lip clenched between his teeth, he chose the one that offered the best shot and the most meat, and slowly brought his crossbow up.

The arrow found its target, he had no doubt, as the deer bucked at the impact and sprinted for the woods, the others following with flags up. Daryl watched carefully which way they disappeared, and proceeded to follow.

Sure enough, he found a blood trail and followed it a short way to where a doe lay just inside the woods on the far side of the meadow. He gave her body a poke with the crossbow to be sure she was dead, then allowed the smile to spread across his face. Dropping to his knees, he put a hand on the animal’s warm flank. “Thanks, sister,” he murmured. They’d eat good tonight, and tomorrow, and for several days. The meat would help Rick regain his strength, and fortify them both for what lay ahead.

With darkness approaching, he quickly tied the deer’s back legs together with his rope, made himself a bit of a harness, and began to drag the animal back in the direction he’d come. It occurred to him just how far that was, uphill, and just how quickly the sun was setting. Nothing to be done about it but to do it. He dragged the deer back across the meadow, lost in thought, and just as he stepped into the woods again, his mind suddenly became aware that the thumping, swishing sound he was hearing was _not_ being made by his footsteps or the dragging deer.

Dropping the rope, he whirled around just as the walker lunged at him, all half-frozen, blackened flesh, gnashing teeth and wild, white hair in a rotten sack of overalls. He swung up his crossbow, planted it in the walker’s chest and shoved, but the man was huge and Daryl was caught off balance. He staggered backward and suddenly he was falling, his legs caught by a barbed wire fence. He went down hard, the wind knocked out of him, but miraculously, the walker suddenly turned its attention to the deer carcass.

“No! No you bastard!” Desperately, Daryl struggled to free his snagged pants from the fence while he grappled in the snow with half-frozen fingers for his fallen crossbow. He stretched to reach the weapon, but his legs were holding him back; with a cry he yanked free with all his might, his hand finally closing around the bowstring and dragging the crossbow toward him. He rolled over, brought it up and fired just as the living corpse chewed the deer’s nose off; the walker froze and fell with a satisfying thud.

Daryl drew a deep, ragged breath, his heart beating a mile a minute, his whole body shaking with the adrenaline burst. Pushing himself slowly to his knees, he realized with a sinking feeling what he’d done to himself; there were gaping holes in the back of his left pantleg, and in the back of his left calf.

“Shit! Aw, shit…”

Dragging his backpack off, he brushed away the snow and dug into it for his medical supplies and water, his hands trembling. He took a drink, tried to rinse the wound a bit, tried to close the flaps of skin back up, holding the flashlight in his mouth. He could barely see what he was doing, and soon there was blood everywhere. He packed snow against the wound, then as much gauze as he had in the little first aid kit, then realized he’d need to wrap it tightly with something. With his knife, he cut the bottom of his shirt off and wrapped it snugly around his calf. It would have to do. It was beginning to hurt like hell.

Gritting his teeth, he shouldered his pack and his crossbow again, hauled the deer under the fence and away from the dead man, drew the rope around his chest and leaned into it.

_Fuck, this sucks… fuck, this sucks…_ Not such a good marching cadence, but after a couple miles of dragging the 135-pound doe uphill in the dark, it was all Daryl’s mind could muster. He was soaked with sweat, his leg throbbed viciously, and he was beginning to worry about the blood trail he was leaving—both the deer’s and his own. He made the decision to stop in front of a rocky outcrop, and shoving the flashlight in his mouth, he took his knife and set about gutting the deer right there, drawing the blade from the anus up the belly and watching the animal’s lifeblood pour out, bright startling red against the pure white snow. The entrails he left in a steaming pile—hoping to distract anything following him. He saved the heart and liver, placing them in a plastic bag he’d stuffed into the backpack for just that purpose. He didn’t like the way his hands were cold and shaking, the way his wounded leg was stiffening, or the way his sweat began chilling him as soon as he stopped. He had to keep moving.

Shakily he set out again, the deer still feeling like a boat anchor behind him. He was tired and cold and in pain, and just wanted to be back in the warm cabin. He comforted himself by thinking about what lay ahead. A good meal, a warm fire, a comfortable bed. Rick would be happy. Happy? He didn’t know what happy looked like on Rick. Pleased, maybe. Content. Satisfied. He liked it when Rick felt satisfied. That bath—that had satisfied him…

Daryl usually had an excellent sense of direction, of time, an awareness of his surroundings—but tonight nearly everything was working against him. The storm clouds dimmed the moon and stars and the snow obscured his earlier tracks; all his landmarks had been transformed into something unrecognizable. All he could see were vague shapes ahead in the darkness. Branches scratched his face and tore at his wet clothing. All that kept him warm now was his exertion.

At least he had the ridge in his favor—he knew he was still on the right side of it, moving in the right general direction. Walkers didn’t like steep terrain like this, though bears and catamounts wouldn’t find it a hindrance, he reckoned. So he kept moving, albeit more and more slowly, and tried not to worry about anything following. Tried not to worry about Rick worrying about him.

_Think your sheriff is worried about your little pansy ass? Hell, he’s prob’ly fixin’ to leave without ya. Or maybe he’s tyin’ himself a noose outta the bedsheets or swallowin’ a bullet. Or maybe he does give a shit and he’s fixin’ to come lookin’ for your sorry behind. Be a shame if he ran into a biter all alone in the dark without you to save him, eh Superman? You better fuckin’ pick up the pace._

Merle Dixon was a lousy cheerleader, but a great motivational speaker, if one’s main motivation was to live and prove him wrong. After years of being nagged, abused and bitched at—as well as kept alive—by  Merle, it was his voice Daryl heard when the going got really tough. So he told Merle to go fuck himself and dug in, despite the wet feet, despite the throbbing leg, despite the exhaustion and cold threatening to make him stop and curl up in a ball.

_Fuck, this sucks, fuck, this sucks…_ one foot in front of another, over and over, until suddenly his heart jumped into his throat and his benumbed senses told him _STOP!_ just in time. He teetered on the edge of a steep ravine, the yawning darkness below concealing a treacherous drop to a rocky creek bed. Snow whirled up the gorge driven on the wind, stinging his face. Standing there trembling, he let out a moan, dropped to one knee. He knew this place. He’d gone a half-mile too far. He’d overshot the cabin, either from above or below. He wanted to cry.

_Jesus Christ, go ahead, cry, ya little faggot! That fixes everything. Come on now, boy, this is kicking your ass. I thought you were a hunter. Hell, I thought you were a man! You’re nothin’ but a …_

“Shut the fuck up!” he hollered into the ravine, his voice breaking, and heaved himself to his feet again. He sensed his mind was working slowly, but judging by the lay of the land, he guessed himself to be too high on the ridge. Thank Christ, he needed to backtrack _downhill_.

When he finally saw the cabin blazing like a lighthouse through the trees and smelled the woodsmoke swirling on the wind, he was at first appalled that Rick had been so careless—then he realized that it was lit up just for him, to guide him home. A warmth flooded his chest. He staggered into the yard, hauling that godforsaken deer up to the steps, and suddenly Rick was beside him and he wanted to cry again. He tried to climb the stairs to the deck, but his leg gave out and he stumbled, feeling Rick catch his arm.

“Hey… hey,” Rick was saying, “let’s get you inside. Let go of the rope. I’ll get the deer.”

“You grab the head end…”

“No, let it go—I’ll get it.”

“The hell you will, I dragged it this far…” Daryl tried to stand and pull again, but found himself completely spent. His leg was done cooperating. Rick was grabbing him under the arm, helping him crawl up the slippery steps and stumble across the deck, and moments later, he was collapsing on the floor in front of the woodstove.

“You gotta get the deer in here, Rick. Don’t leave it out there.”

Rick disappeared out into the snow, then reappeared dragging the snowy and blood-covered animal through the door and straight through the living room. Daryl could hear him grunting and panting, hear his footsteps returning to shut the door, then make the rounds of the cabin, turning off lights and blowing out lamps and candles, until he was back beside Daryl, and only one candle remained, on the table beside them.

Rick knelt down next to him, and Daryl felt a hand on his shivering back. “What’s going on? What can I do?” he asked gently. Daryl knew he had to get his wet clothes off, get warm, get his leg tended to, but he didn’t even have the energy to speak. He just wanted to sleep.

Rick sighed. “C’mon,” he said. “Skin a bunny.” He pulled Daryl up and held his arms in the air like he was a child, helped him peel off several layers of wet shirts. Daryl fussed when Rick got to his undershirt, but Rick wasn’t having any of it. “It’s just scars – I’ve seen ‘em. Stop it.” He yanked the wifebeater over Daryl’s head and tossed it on the pile, then pulled the fleece throw off the couch and wrapped it around Daryl’s shoulders.

“C’mon now, lie down,” Rick instructed, then he was unfastening Daryl’s belt.

“Hold on,” Daryl finally managed. “My leg… it’s bad…”

Rick grabbed the candle and held it over Daryl’s legs, then reached for his flashlight on the table and flicked it on, training the beam on Daryl’s left leg. Daryl couldn’t look. He knew his pantleg and boot had to be soaked with blood. Somehow Rick hadn’t seen it yet.

“Shit… oh shit, Daryl. What happened?” Rick’s voice was suddenly tense with fear. “What is this? Were you bit?”

“Barbed wire fence,” he croaked.

“Oh, God…” Rick pulled off Daryl’s boots and wet socks, then carefully untied the bloody strip of t-shirt around his leg and slowly worked his tattered jeans off.

Daryl laid on the couch in front of the woodstove, wrapped in the down comforter, and let himself be cared for. It was such a foreign feeling, and his tired mind wandered back to Hershel’s farm, to the hours he spent recuperating from his harrowing fall and the wounds he got in searching for Sophia—including being mistaken for a walker and shot by Andrea. To have people he barely knew fuss over him, clean him, treat him, feed him, care for him, tuck him in bed—he could hardly comprehend it then. Sure, Merle had occasionally tossed him a bottle of Advil the morning after a bender, or given him a warm beer, and once he’d driven him to the emergency room after a fight. He did remember a time when he was little and had chicken pox that his mama had put him in a warm bath and then put calamine lotion on him. She might have even sung him a song. She must have been sober that night.

Every thrust of the needle into his calf as Rick stitched him up made him gasp a little, but it was a good pain. It meant he was alive and not alone, that someone cared, and that things would be better tomorrow. He tried to concentrate on Rick’s warm hand on the back of his knee, holding him still, holding the skin together as he sewed. Rick knelt on the floor at the side of the sofa, concentrating hard at his task with a headlamp and a pair of reading glasses on. When Daryl looked back at him it made him smile a little. Rick murmured to him soothingly every few minutes, placed a baggie of snow on the wound to numb it a little more. It all felt so surreal… just days ago, Rick was cursing and snarling at him like a man possessed.

“Done,” Rick finally said. “That’s as good as it gets.” He dressed the wound and wrapped Daryl’s calf tightly with an Ace bandage.

“Good enough,” Daryl sighed, adjusting the heated rock wrapped in a towel that Rick had placed against his belly for extra warmth.

“How are you feeling? You hungry? Want me to cook up some of that liver?”

“Just need s’more water.”

Rick reached for the glass and held it out to him, along with three Tylenol, and Daryl lifted up onto his elbows and took it, his eyes meeting Rick’s for the first time since arriving back. They held each other’s gaze for a moment in the flickering light, as Daryl downed the liquid.

“I was really worried about you,” Rick chided softly. “You were gone for hours. You shouldn’t have gone so far.”

Daryl nodded at him, his throat constricting.

“You need anything else?”

“Mmh. Still kinda cold,” he admitted.

“You could use a warm bath, but the batteries are drained, and the deer is in the tub now.”

“I’ll be ok… Just wanna sleep.”

Rick studied him for a minute, took the empty glass away, blew out the candle, then said, “Lie down.” Daryl rolled up on his side, more than ready to finally sleep, facing the back of the sofa. If he could just get rid of this nagging chill… he moved to pull the comforter tighter around him, but suddenly Rick was lifting it up, and he felt the cushions give and a warm body nestle up behind him. The couch was large and deep, and somehow they both fit.

“Quid pro quo,” Rick murmured. “I’ll try not to bump your leg.”

Daryl couldn’t help but smile in the darkness, even though he didn’t know what the hell that meant.

***

Sometime before dawn, Daryl woke up to a cold draft on his back, and it took him a moment to realize that Rick had just pulled away from him and sat up. He could hear the man groaning and grumbling softly as he stumbled off to the bathroom. He sighed—it had been so nice while it lasted, and he’d fallen asleep too quickly to really enjoy it. _Shit._ He rolled over, trying to get comfortable again. He was really not in a hurry to get up. A couple minutes later Rick returned, and poked up the last embers in the woodstove as quietly as he could. They never had a fire during daylight hours, afraid the visible smoke rising would draw too much attention. Lighting the fire at night managed to take the chill off and keep things reasonably livable—but if it kept getting colder, they might have to rethink their strategy.

Daryl could just see Rick’s crouching silhouette in the faint light emanating from the stove. “Hey,” he croaked. “You get me some more Tylenol?”

“Mmm-hmm.” Rick closed the stove’s door and produced the pills and a glass of water, and Daryl lifted up on an elbow and took them gratefully.

“Thanks.”

Daryl was completely shocked when, a moment later, Rick lifted the covers again and slid back underneath. He rolled over to face the room, allowing Daryl this time to be the big spoon. “It’s so warm under here, I could hardly stand to get up,” Rick murmured. “But when ya gotta go, ya gotta go.”

“Mmmph.” Daryl was suddenly, violently conscious of the fact that he was buck naked, and that Rick was wearing only those black sweatpants that draped so wantonly off his narrow hipbones, often showing a hint of pubic hair when he stood and stretched in the morning. He wanted to spoon Rick, but instead he was pressing back into the couch cushions as his cock stood to attention, pointing hard in Rick’s direction. He had nothing on to rein it in. He lay there stiffly in an agony of longing for what felt like a long time, not daring to touch Rick, feeling his leg throb and listening while Rick’s breathing grew slow and regular again, until finally his pain and self-consciousness subsided and he slipped back into a fitful sleep.

When next Daryl woke, he was sure for a moment he was dreaming. He could feel breath on his forehead, feel a warm body next to and underneath his. He swam up slowly from sleep, treading just below the surface. He felt so good, so warm and comfortable. He cuddled close to the warmth, nuzzled his face against sweet-smelling skin, brushing his lips over its surface. Longing flooded him again, and he felt the fullness in his groin, gently rocked forward. It felt good to push forward. His fingers lay on warm skin, too, and he idly wondered if he were touching an arm, or a chest; the hair felt soft and silky. He wanted.

A little more clarity arrived, and he fought it. He didn’t want to wake from this lovely dream. But in dawn’s gray light he gently realized that he’d draped himself half over Rick, who was now sleeping on his back, snoring softly. Daryl closed his eyes again, sighed out a slow breath. Softly, so softly, he let his lips touch the man’s neck again, inhaling the faint scent of spicy soap, of skin. He loved that scent… the scent of Rick. He let his hand wander its way up Rick’s forearm, up his bicep, over his bare breast, brushing just the tips of his fingers over Rick’s sharp clavicle. Rick hummed softly, and Daryl’s hand stilled. Rick didn’t awaken. Daryl let the hand journey back down, feeling a nipple harden under his touch. He didn’t want to tickle. He wanted Rick to stay asleep, to dream him, to float like he’d been doing, in a sea of sweet subconsciousness. Good things happened here. Anymore, it was the only place good things happened. He let himself float a little more, increasingly awake, but keeping his eyes closed. Oh, his cock ached so good, pressed against Rick’s thigh, his left leg draped over Rick’s. He nuzzled some more with his nose, tracing his fingers down Rick’s belly, down his happy trail, to the waistband of his sweats, and let his palm faintly, so faintly brush over Rick’s crotch. His hand met with the head of Rick’s cock, straining at the material, and he couldn’t help it--he bucked against Rick’s leg.

Rick inhaled sharply, and Daryl stilled, bringing his hand lightly to rest on Rick’s thigh.

“Mmm… Daryl?”

“S’ ok,” Daryl whispered soothingly, “Yer dreaming. I was too… Kinda nice, mmm?” He opened his mouth a little and placed the softest of kisses on the sensitive spot just below Rick’s ear, licking ever so lightly, while he ran his hand up Rick’s thigh and over his hipbone.

Rick’s neck arched beneath his mouth, and a hand suddenly clamped down over his.

“S’ ok,” Daryl repeated. “Let me… jus’ let me…” He paused a moment, and Rick didn’t move, didn’t even breathe. Daryl slid his hand carefully out from under Rick’s and slowly plunged it down, under the waistband, found the penis there and wrapped his fingers tightly around it. His hips rocked forward again and his own cock felt wet against the material on Rick’s thigh.

“Oh my God…” Rick breathed.

Daryl nipped at Rick’s earlobe, breathing into his ear. “Let me…”

Daryl pulled on him once, twice, and even though Rick’s hand grabbed at Daryl’s wrist, Rick did not ask him to stop. Daryl brought his hand back up to lick it, spit into it, then shove it back into Rick’s pants again to work him over. Rick began to melt beneath him, hands falling away, thighs opening, lips parting to gasp softly as Daryl jerked him off.

“Oh fuck,” Rick whimpered. “Fuck… fuck…” He began a subtle roll of his hips, thrusting himself faster through Daryl’s hand, turning his head toward the back of the sofa, clutching the blanket in a fist. Daryl raised himself on an elbow so he could watch Rick come, and he wasn’t disappointed—the look of pure ecstatic agony on Rick’s face at the moment of orgasm was worth dragging another deer up that ridge.

“That’s it, c’mon,” Daryl breathed, as the shuddering, panting man beneath him began to cover his hand with cum. “That’s good, mmm?”

Then... because he didn’t dare to ask for more, or to be rejected, Daryl flung the covers back and bolted off the couch to finish himself off in the shower stall under a spray of lukewarm water. As he watched the jism swirl down the drain, his head against the shower door, he suddenly wished he could disappear just as thoroughly.

_Oh Jesus H. Everlovin' Christ what the hell have I gone and done?_

A very long shower later, coming out of that bathroom again was one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do.

He was hugely relieved to see Rick still lying on the couch, curled up and facing the cushions.

The day passed in awkward slowness and silence. Snow continued to pile up outside, the inside of the house gloomy and hushed and bathed in a strange gray light. Rick slept until what seemed like noon, and while Daryl was relieved at first not to talk, after a while it began to feel like torture. He wasn’t sure which would be worse – actually facing Rick again after what he’d done, or continuing to imagine what Rick might say and do.

Daryl spent the morning skinning the deer, propping the bathroom window open a little to keep the temperature cool. When he finally stopped to realize how hungry he was, it was easy to carve a hunk of meat off a haunch and carry it to the kitchen to sear it on the stove. He stood there in his bare feet watching it cook for a minute, when he realized with a start that Rick was standing in front of him. He jumped back a little in surprise, but Rick just looked at him, blinking.

“Can I have some, too?” he muttered.

“Sure,” Daryl answered. For some idiotic reason, his hands started to shake. He flipped the piece of meat over, finished searing it, and grabbing a spatula from the counter, he slid it onto a plate. He held the plate out to Rick. “Here, take it, I’ll make more.” Rick hesitated, and Daryl wondered if he was trying to be polite, or trying to figure out why the plate was trembling like a windblown leaf.

“You ok?” Rick asked, taking the plate from him.

“Fuckyeahwhy?” Daryl blurted, then quickly squeezed past Rick and headed back to the bathroom, clutching his knife in his sweaty palm.

The rest of the day did not go any better, and that evening, Daryl feigned sleepiness and turned in early, crawling into the small bed in the dark.

He cursed the fact that some time later, he remained wide-awake when Rick came into the room and flopped into the other bed. Daryl pretended to be asleep, tried to breathe slowly and evenly, but apparently Rick wasn’t fooled.

“So,” Rick said evenly, out of the darkness, “I had the weirdest wet dream this morning...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gettin' a little steamier - enjoy! Please leave a comment and tell me what you liked or didn't!


	4. Cops 'n Robbers

Daryl’s heart climbed into his throat, and he stopped breathing; paralyzed, he lay listening, staring wide-eyed into the darkness.

“Was kinda nice at first,” Rick reeled on nonchalantly. “Some pretty woman in my bed, touchin’ me and kissin’ my neck, turnin’ me on. That actress, I think—what’s her name? Scarlett Johansson. Always liked her.”

Daryl didn’t move a muscle; didn’t even blink.

“The funny part, though, was when that woman turned into _you.”_ Rick chuckled, but the sound was humorless and slightly sinister. “Imagine that. I dreamed about _you_ touchin’ my dick. You even jerked me off, and hell, I _let_ you, even though I _was_ kinda confused.”

Daryl started to see stars and finally drew a shallow, tortured breath, and Rick paused in his monologue a moment before continuing.

“Y’know, I would’a thought it _was_ a wet dream after all—you could’a convinced me—except that you spent all day actin’ bat-shit crazy and avoiding me like I was the weird girl at the prom. So I had to reckon somethin’ was up.” Rick sighed rather dramatically. “So I got a couple questions for you, Daryl.”

Daryl managed a tiny grunt.

“One—and you better answer me honestly—is that the _first_ time you ever touched my junk while I was out of it?”

Daryl’s eyes grew even wider and his mouth opened and closed a couple times, as if he were a catfish thrown up on the riverbank. Finally, he found his voice. “Shit no… I mean yeah! Yes… yeah… I ain’t been gropin’ you in your sleep every night! C’mon Rick—you know me better ‘n that!”

Rick snorted. “Well, I thought I did, but apparently I ain’t been payin’ close enough attention. So question two is _WHY?”_

“Why?” Daryl repeated. He’d been mentally rehearsing answers to _that_ question all day, but now that the moment of truth was here, his clever replies had all turned tail and fled. “I don’t know why,” he murmured. “It just happened, man. Shit, Rick—don’t you ever get lonely?”

“Course I do. But…”

Rick stopped, and spent a moment composing his thoughts again, while Daryl wondered if his chest could get any tighter. He was covered in cold sweat. _Jesus, am I having a heart attack?_

“So my third question,” Rick said, and his tone had softened somewhat, “was for myself. ‘Cause if I’m honest—and I do try to be—I have to ask myself why I really didn’t mind _._ ‘Cause, y’know, I expected that I ought to wanna punch you in the throat. But I don’t. Spent a lotta time thinking on that today.”

“I tried to tell myself maybe I’ve just given up on being judgmental about that stuff,” Rick continued. “I mean, I never spent any time thinking about your sexual proclivities, and I ain’t even gonna ask you if you’re gay, or bisexual, or what—because labels just don’t matter much to me anymore. It doesn’t make a difference. Though maybe it does make it clearer to me why you never did Carol.”

Daryl scowled. “Hey… how the hell do _you_ know I never did Carol?”

“Everybody knows you never did Carol.”

“I’m thinkin’ that ain’t nobody’s business,” he growled, starting to feel prickly all over.

“But that doesn’t explain,” Rick said, ignoring him, “why I couldn’t stop thinkin’ about it. I mean, it wasn’t like I just shrugged it off. Hell, I think I actually kinda _enjoyed_ it. So then I thought, well maybe I’m just so fuckin’ lonely and desperate that I’d do anybody who wasn’t half-rotten at this point, y’know? I mean, is that what it was about for _you?_ Just gettin’ your rocks off with a warm body?”

Daryl lifted his hands and scrubbed at his face, wished he could start this conversation over again and somehow be in control. He folded his arms across his chest and opened his mouth, but Rick cut him off.

“Or were you really coming on to me? And am I actually into _you_? ‘Cause when I think about it, I wouldn’t have let just anyone do me like that.”

_Does this guy ever stop talking?_ “I think yer up to six questions, now,” Daryl muttered. “Seven, if yer askin’ if I ever did Carol.”

“So my mind’s a little blown, ‘cause I never thought I was into men, but then I remembered something. I remembered I spent the whole eighth grade miserable because of Mister Charles.”

“Who the hell was Mister Charles?”

“Mister Charles was the phys ed teacher, and he used to be a gymnast—he had the most amazing arms and ass. I wouldn’t last five minutes in my gym shorts before I had a hard-on, and had to spend the rest of gym class tryin’ to hide it. He must’ve thought I was handicapped or something. Needless to say, I fuckin’ hated gym class…”

Daryl couldn’t help it—something about picturing Rick as a skinny little middle-school nerd with a perpetual gym-class boner—he let out a half-stifled snicker.

“It wasn’t funny, man, I almost failed.” Rick complained. “Can you imagine failing gym class?”

Daryl kept giggling.

Rick listened to him a minute, then finally broke and let out a chuckle. “You’re a dickhead.”

“So I remind you of Mr. Charles?”

“Fuck you,” Rick laughed.

“How’d Shane feel about your eighth grade bonerfest?”

Rick got quiet—and Daryl instantly regretted bringing Rick’s former partner up.

“Didn’t know Shane until my sophomore year. Or Lori. My family moved to a new town, with a new high school,” Rick finally said softly. “Thank God. Started dating Lori, and I forgot all about Mr. Charles.”

“Mmph,” Daryl answered. _Started dating Lori? In ninth grade? Did that mean…?_ “So…” he said carefully, “How many guys’ve you fucked around with?”

“Uh… well… none. Just you. How many guys have you fucked around with?”

Daryl snorted and answered too quickly. “Jesus—hundreds…”

Rick got quiet again.

_Oops… damn…_

“Really? You shittin’ me?”

Daryl draped an arm over his face. He realized he’d let the cat out of the bag, but he wanted, somehow, for Rick to know the truth—and accept him anyway. He wanted to stop hiding his past from everyone. He hadn’t planned on spitting it out tonight… but there it was. So he forged ahead, hoping that somehow… somehow Rick could understand this small part of who he was.

“Not ‘cause I really wanted it to be that way, Rick,” he answered. “I ain’t proud of it. But I cain’t change the past. Cain’t change what I did to get by.”

“What did you do?” Rick murmured.

Daryl took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Merle and I spent a lotta time on the road… one town to the next… sometimes doin’ odd jobs for a bite to eat, or a place to sleep. Or to get Merle stoned. When things got bad, which was pretty often for a while, we’d swing into a truck stop and I’d walk the lot. There was always somebody lookin’ for a blow job or a piece of ass.”

Rick raised up on an elbow, and Daryl could feel his friend’s wide eyes on him in the darkness. “Merle let you do that?” he said, sounding shocked.

Daryl snorted again. “As long as Merle got high, I didn’t hear no complainin’.”

“Damn…”

“Ain’t askin’ for no sympathy…” he growled. “I was a big boy. Managed to avoid psychos. Never got AIDS. Made the dirty old men use condoms. Saw Merle get enough cases of the clap ta know. Ain’t like I was doin’ it right up till the world ended, either. I quit that shit a couple years back—got too old, even if I didn’t look it.”

 The two men laid there quietly for a few moments, lost in thought, until Rick broke the silence. “So… what did you say to those truckers? I mean, how did you know which ones to approach, and which ones might just try to beat the shit out of you?”

“Mmm. Well, I’d see ‘em sittin’ in the cab, or maybe pokin’ around under the hood, or headin’ for the restaurant, and I’d walk up and say ‘hey, you got a light?’ or maybe ‘got any beer?’ or ‘wanna buy me a beer?’ and if they talked to me and looked interested, I’d say ‘want some company?’ Y’know, stuff like that. If they said ‘get the fuck outta here,’ then I did.”

“So if you got a bite… then what would you do?”

“Man… you really wanna know?”

Rick hummed assent, and Daryl watched him settle a bit, still lying on his side to look at him, but propping his head on the pillow instead of his hand.  “If you wanna tell me,” he finally answered.

Daryl looked back up at the ceiling, played with his moustache. “Well… I’d climb in the cab with ‘em, or go back to their room, and mostly they just wanted a blow job and somebody to talk at. But sometimes, if they had the cash, I’d bend over for ‘em.”

Rick paused to process that. “You ever get arrested?”

“Cop tried to pick me up once, but I never made it to jail.”

“What happened?”

“I blew ‘im and he let me off.”

Daryl turned his head when Rick didn’t answer, and though it was nearly completely dark in the room, he thought he could stlll see the man’s eyes glittering, staring a hole through him.

“You prob’ly never did anything like that when you was a cop, huh? Guess Lori would’a had your ass. Plus you were a better cop than that, I’m thinkin’...”

Rick grunted, then sat up suddenly, swinging his legs down to the floor. “I gotta piss,” he announced, and just like that, the conversation was over. Daryl sat up, too, watching his back disappearing out the door and down the hallway, where soft moonlight filtered down from the second story window. He heard Rick enter the bathroom, and before he knew what he was doing, he was up and out of bed, too, and limping through the doorway. He felt as though he were teetering on the edge of something… that Rick was teetering too… and that he needed to push—just a little more. Rick was curious, that much was obvious—but they had no whiskey or weed to lower inhibitions and lubricate the gears of lust. So when Rick stepped out of the bathroom again and nearly walked right by him standing in the shadows, he figured it was a little stroke of genius that prompted him to say,

“Hey, man, you got a light?”

Rick stopped short, surprised, no doubt, to encounter him in the hallway, and just stood there for a moment, half his face in silver light.

“You look lonely,” Daryl purred softly, leaning casually against the wall. “How ‘bout some company?”

“How much?” Rick suddenly asked.

The corner of Daryl’s mouth quirked up in an invisible smile. “Fer you, twenty-five. Been told I can suck a golf ball through a garden hose.”

“That so?” Rick said sardonically. “Well, put your hands up—you’re under arrest for soliciting a police officer.”

“Shit—what!?” Daryl cried, trying not to grin.

“C’mon, turn around and put your hands against the wall,” Rick ordered.

Daryl spun around, griping and grumbling. “Yer a fucken cop? C’mon, you’re too skinny to be a damn cop.” He placed his hands up against the wall in the hallway, startling as Rick gently kicked the inside of his good leg.

“Spread ‘em,” Rick barked. “And shut up.”

Daryl braced himself spread-eagle against the wall, his heart thudding in his chest, and took his bottom lip between his teeth as Rick began to frisk him. His body suddenly felt electric with longing, his skin tingling and sex vibrating as though he were a struck tuning fork. How could Rick not feel the way every atom in his body seemed to be shuddering and shimmering?

Rick patted his waist and hips, ran his hands up Daryl’s sides to his armpits, then trailed a hand along his lower back. “Got any weapons on you?” he murmured.

“Just these guns,” he growled, and kissed his bicep, maintaining an outward appearance of cool… playing the game.

“Funny. Got any drugs on you? Any needles? Anything sharp in your pockets?”

Daryl snorted. “Got something in my pocket, but it’s big and blunt.”

“That right?” Rick crouched behind him, and began to slow his search. Daryl felt warm hands circle his right ankle, and Rick began to slide them up slowly, over his sweatpants, palms sliding over his calf, cupping his knee, caressing his thigh, fingers searching as the warmth traveled into his groin and brushed the underside of his testicles, slid up over a hipbone, palmed a split-second handful of an ass cheek. Daryl couldn’t hold back a shiver.

“Ho! Hey there, Officer Handsy,” Daryl said shakily, “that ain’t in the procedure manual…”

“Didn’t I tell you to shutup?”

Rick crouched again and repeated the frisk on the other leg, at first barely touching, avoiding the stitches in his upper calf, but suddenly sliding a hand up between his thighs to press quickly but firmly on the slight mound of flesh between balls and asshole, making Daryl rise to his toes before Rick’s fingers trailed up his ass crack, then went underneath his t-shirt.

Next thing Daryl knew, he could feel the heat of Rick’s body as the man stood close behind him—as close as he could get without his chest touching Daryl’s back—both of his hands sliding up Daryl’s ribcage to his armpits, around to his pecs, thumbs circling tightening nipples, palms brushing abs on the way back down to slide index fingers under his waistband, and _Oh…_ barely tickle silky pubic hair. The shivers turned to shudders.

By this time, Daryl was breathing rather heavily. “I’m thinkin’ you’ve done this kinda search and seizure before, Officer… You got somethin’ you wanna seize?”

“You have the right to remain silent,” Rick intoned. “Anything you say can and will be used against you…”

Daryl felt Rick’s thigh, solid between his legs, Rick’s hands running up and down his outstretched arms, grabbing his wrists, swinging and twisting his arms downward to pin them behind his back.

 “You have the right to an attorney…”

Rick held Daryl’s straining arms, and suddenly Daryl’s fingers were brushing Rick’s groin and discerning the shape of Rick’s penis through the jeans he’d worn to bed. Or rather, Rick was pushing his groin into Daryl’s hands. Rick’s cock felt like a lead pipe.

“Fuck,” Daryl croaked.

“You got somethin’ to say to me?” Rick growled.

“H…how… how ‘bout a freebie, Officer? I give you a little sample, you let me go, I leave town, you never have to see me again. Y’know—I’ll scratch your back, you scratch mine?”

Rick laughed darkly, spun him back around again by the shoulders, and shoved him rather roughly to his knees, making him wince as his left kneecap struck the wooden floor, sending a shooting pain through his injured leg. “Let’s get started and we’ll see,” Rick purred. “If I like that freebie, I might not _want_ you ta’ leave town.”

Daryl’s chest tightened a bit again. While he was thrilled that Rick was playing his little role-playing game, he wasn’t so sure he wanted him channeling Shane…

He looked up at Rick, locking eyes with him in the moonlight. The man’s gaze felt cold. “I’ll give you whatever you want,” Daryl said simply.

Rick licked his lips and smoothly unfastened his jeans, and Daryl felt a hand slide into his hair, and a moment later, the head of Rick’s cock pressed against his lower lip. He closed his eyes and opened his mouth, the cock sliding in and his tongue rushing to greet it, caress it like a lover, curl around it like a cat. He bobbed his head slowly, taking Rick deeper and deeper, sucked hard, then popped off, lapping at Rick like a popsicle, before beginning again. He forgot his “handcuffs,” but Rick didn’t seem to notice, instead moaning as Daryl’s fingers curled around the root of his cock, squeezed his balls, clutched at his thighs. Daryl opened his throat and swallowed Rick to the base, nestling his nose in Rick’s riot of pubic curls, clenching fistfuls of Rick’s ass in order to pull him in and devour him completely. He could feel Rick shaking, hear him groaning, feel his fingers clawing at Daryl’s scalp. Daryl came up gasping for air, drooling and panting, then pushed Rick’s twitching cock aside to suck his balls in, one by one, entertaining each in his mouth for a moment before popping them out, and going back for more dick. His jaw was aching but hell if he was going to let that slow him down.

Rick curled over him, quivering, panting and swearing, and Daryl opened up and swallowed deeply again—then Rick was coming, pulsing against the roof of his mouth, filling the back of his throat and he gagged and tried to pull back, but Rick was clutching him so hard that he nearly choked. A moment later he was coughing and sputtering on the floor, Rick leaning over him and holding onto the wall.

“What the fu… holy shit… you ok?” Rick was blubbering, and reached down with his free hand to help Daryl off the floorboards. Daryl staggered to his feet, swiping an arm across his mouth, knees popping.

“’M ok,” he panted.

“Good,” Rick said. “Now hands back up on the wall.” His hands weighed heavily on Daryl’s shoulders again as he spun him back around to face the wall, giving him a little push and forcing him to brace himself again.

“Hey, wait a minute,” Daryl protested, “we had a deal…”

“Sure we did,” Rick purred in his ear, “But we ain’t done yet.” Daryl gasped as Rick pressed up tight against his ass, and reached around from behind to cup his bulging package. “I ain’t scratched _your_ back.”

It was Daryl’s turn to moan as Rick held him tight, one warm hand splayed open in the center of his chest, and the other invading his pants, pulling him out, fondling and stroking him. The touches were a bit tentative at first, but became more confident as Daryl made appreciative sounds and let his head fall back against Rick’s shoulder. Daryl was glad for Rick behind him and the wall in front, as the tremors he was experiencing were making him weak in the already-weakened knees. He seemed to be making plenty of his own lube, and Rick was pushing a thumb into his slit to capture it, rubbing it around the head of his cock and smearing it down his erect shaft, then back up to repeat.

“That feel good?” Rick murmured, twisting and pumping his hand, and Daryl began to buck a little to follow. “You like that, don’t ya?”

Daryl began to lose any sense of pretending vs. reality. The hand on his cock was very real, Rick solid and warm behind him, and Rick’s breathy words hot and raunchy in his ear. If Rick was pretending, he didn’t care anymore. His orgasm was about to be real.

“Mmm, you like that. Your dick is droolin’ all over me… so damn slippery. You wish you were up somebody’s ass, you filthy cocksucker? That why you’re rockin’ and rollin’ like that?”

“Fuck, Rick…” Daryl choked out.

“You keep rubbin’ and quiverin’ on me like a damn cat in heat, you’re gonna make me hard again. Maybe you want me up _your_ ass – is _that_ it? You go ahead and imagine that. Imagine my cock jammed so far up your…”

Daryl let out a _shout,_ and was surprised a moment later to see that he hadn’t whitewashed the wall—only Rick’s hand. Had he been twenty, he could’ve written his name on the logs... Rick gently loosened his hold, and Daryl stepped away from him, turned around, and reached out to take the hand Rick was holding up awkwardly, coated and dripping with his cum. Still shivering, Daryl pulled the hand toward his mouth, and one by one, licked and sucked Rick’s fingers clean, flicking his tongue into the crevices between digits, and lapping carefully at stray salty drops on the back of his knuckles. Rick stood stock still until he was done; the only sounds in the house seemed to be Rick’s loud breathing and Daryl’s tongue.

Then, still holding Rick’s hand, Daryl reached out to slide fingers into the curls at the back of Rick’s neck and pull him close—but his open mouth brushed across Rick’s cheek as his friend turned his head away from the kiss.

Daryl let him go.

Rick had become very quiet. “Tired,” he said, and made to go back to the bedroom, but Daryl caught his elbow as he turned.

“Let’s go upstairs,” he said. “Bed’s much nicer.”

To his surprise, Rick followed him, not saying a word, and after a rather stiff, slow climb up the spiral stairs, they slid into the luxury of the Queen-size pillow-top up in the loft. Rick lay silently on one side of the bed, and Daryl on the other.

Had he really thought this would go smoothly? That Rick would just fall into his arms and they’d fuck happily ever after? He sighed, feeling the energy of the space between them, several inches of cool white sheet, vast and yawning as the Grand Canyon. He longed to reach across, but didn’t dare. Rick seemed to need that space right now. Would Rick even be able to look at him in the morning? Would he be able to look at Rick? Had he completely ruined whatever relationship they had left?

From this aerie on the second floor, Daryl could see out the big windows that stretched all the way to the cathedral ceiling. The moon shone silver on bare tree branches; stars glittered in the cold night air. The loft was comfortable, gathering the heat rising from the small fire in the woodstove below. For these things, at least, Daryl felt grateful.

Then Rick’s voice, low and warm, came out of the darkness beside him. “Think I got a little carried away tonight,” he said slowly. “Are you ok?”

 Daryl thought about how to answer that, but no words came. So he slid his good leg over, under the covers, and pressed his ankle against Rick’s calf. _I hear you. I’m ok. I’m here for you._

Rick rolled toward him, sighing, and hooked his shin over Daryl’s. _Thank you for being mine._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long to update! Finally finished Ballad of Darth Angel, which just about kicked my butt. This is kicking my butt, too, so I'm going to post shorter chapters. Would love to know what you think - thanks for commenting!


	5. Roadside Zoo

Daryl was an ass man, though lips were a close second—lips and asses. Rick’s mouth was the first thing Daryl noticed about him—or at least noticed in a way that sent a little surge of _hey_ down south. After he’d thrown a stringer of squirrels at Rick and got done cussin’ him out about leavin’ Merle on that roof, he noticed that mouth… full lips all pink and lush and perfect…. and when the crazy fucker told him he was actually going back for Merle, Daryl knew he was in trouble.

That mouth drove him a little wild sometimes, like when Rick’s brow furrowed and his lips parted and that lower lip seemed to pout just a bit. If Rick was really deep in thought, he might purse his lips, maybe chew on the inside of his cheek, and it was all Daryl could do not to grab that goddamn handsome face and plant one on him. Panting, whistling, eating, singing to Judith, or simply talking to Daryl—there were many times a day that Daryl had to look away from the soft curve of Rick’s mouth, lest his dick become a tent-pole in his raggedy jeans. Clean shaven or bearded like Moses, it didn’t matter, those kissable, fuck-me lips still beckoned from their frame of whiskers.

Right now, those lips were open and beckoning, despite the fact that their owner was sound asleep on his belly, his bristly face mashed into the pillow beside Daryl. Drooling a little.

Daryl closed his eyes again, sighing, and remembered those lips on him lastnight, how they’d hovered over his dick for what seemed like an eternity, how Rick kept licking them as he played with Daryl’s painfully hard cock, stroking and fondling almost absently. Daryl had watched with breathless intensity, covered in gooseflesh, every muscle in his body taut. Would he or wouldn’t he? Every warm breath from Rick’s mouth ghosting over his glans was torment.

“Rick, you gonna keep toyin’ with that whistle, or you gonna _blow_ it?” he’d finally groused. He could see the tension in Rick’s neck and shoulders, feel his hesitancy, and he felt a little guilty, but _fuck._

Rick looked up at him in the moonlight, scowled, and looked back down at Daryl’s dick. “Don’ rush me,” he growled. “I’m gettin’ up the nerve. Ain’t never done this before. It’s…  it’s like standing on the edge of the pool, y’know?”

“You back in eighth grade again? Tell Mister Charles to go fuck himself, and dive in. Water’s warm.”

Rick flicked him a scathing glance, and next thing he knew, that pretty pink mouth was wrapped around his cock. _Just like that._

Then there was Rick’s ass. He’d spent a lot of time thinking about that ass, and back when Rick’s pants still hugged him properly, he’d very much enjoyed watching it as Rick sauntered by, or squatted in the woods to check a track, or bent over the trunk of a car. Somehow, though, as those jeans wore out and lost their shape, and that gun belt hung lower and lower, Rick’s little ass went missing.

Now, that ass lay next to him, rediscovered, one bare cheek peeking out of the bedclothes in the new morning light. Daryl reached over, and sliding a finger under the sheet, he bared a little more, hoping Rick didn’t feel the draft. Damn if Rick’s ass didn’t look like the most perfect little peach. Pale gold, with a soft fuzz just visible in the pink dawn. Daryl couldn’t help running a finger over its curve, and sliding down in the bed to give the left cheek an open-mouthed kiss, tasting him with his tongue, sucking gently at his flesh.

Rick grunted and swatted at him, but he deftly ducked away.

“Mornin,’ Peaches,” Daryl purred. “Yer ass tastes as sweet as it looks.”

Rick yanked the covers back around himself and rolled over, turning away.

Daryl sighed, frowning, and slid back to his own side of the bed. It had been a strange four days. The weather had continued to snow, sleet, rain and snow, and the atmosphere indoors was just as unsettled. One minute Rick was scowling, brooding, preoccupied—or sleeping—then the next, he’d lay his hands on Daryl’s hips, or maybe grab him in a headlock and bite him on the shoulder. Shoving, tussling and general horseplay would follow, during which someone would get their drawers yanked off, and then the dicks were out and it was on. If they were feeling energetic and awake, it was rough and dirty and furiously quick. In the dark, though, in the big bed, it was sometimes slow and gentle and exploratory—like lastnight. Until lastnight, Rick had only used his hand on Daryl, with the exception of the time that Rick had pinned him to the living room floor (well, the time Daryl _let_ Rick pin him there) and ground his cock against Daryl’s through their jeans until they were both panting like dogs and coming in their pants like a couple of horny teenagers. Daryl’s face was stiff and sore from all the sucking, and he’d torn a couple of the stitches in his leg.

_Teenagers, hell…_ he thought—they were acting more like a couple of stir-crazy apes in a roadside zoo.

Rick was using their sex as an escape, he knew. He told himself he understood—they were both still full of anger and grief, and the only real cure would be finding their family again. Sometimes it felt like his body was nothing but a distraction for Rick; other times, Rick would give him a little smile across the room, or moan his name, or bid him lie down to check his wound… and it all felt like something more. The only thing he knew for sure was that he was giddy one minute, and confused the next. Just when he began to feel like maybe there was something between them… something more than friendship, more than brotherhood… Rick would turn inward and lose himself in anger or despair again. Or worse, he would just grow quiet and cold. It wasn’t what Daryl had expected—but he hadn’t really expected anything to begin with. They were both lost without a map, marooned on a deserted island, up a creek without a paddle. The last living members of the Fugawi tribe.

Daryl did his best to hold Rick’s kite string; to be his anchor. But keeping him sane sometimes felt more exhausting than keeping him tied up had been.

_“Daryl, what are we doing? This ain’t right… Here we are, fed and warm and comfortable, yankin’ each other’s dicks, sleepin’ till noon, and my kids… our family… they could be cold and hungry. They could be dyin’. We don’t know where they are! Shit, this just ain’t right…”_

_“Ain’t right or wrong—it is what it is. They’re alive and we’re gonna find ‘em, I promise. As soon as the weather turns. Soon as we can walk outta here. I’m gonna get us there.”_

_“Wish I could believe it, man. Tell me again… how’s it gonna be?”_

_“We’re gonna walk through that gate, me ‘n you. And who are we gonna see first?”_

_“Mmm… Glenn.”_

_“Ok, Glenn this time. So Glenn comes runnin’ up, mouth hangin’ open, actin’ all Glenn and tryin’ to hug us, and he’s draggin’ us down the street and there’s a playground, see? And there’s Carl, pushin’ Judi on a swing. One a’ them little kid swings. And she’s laughin’ that big belly laugh…”_

Daryl must have dozed off, and when he woke again, it was to the sound of turning pages. He opened an eye to see that the overcast sky had grown lighter; he’d slept maybe another hour. He turned his head to see Rick lying on his back, once again thumbing through the magazine they’d found in the bedside drawer with the vibrators and lube. While part of him tingled at the thought of Rick being all jacked up on porn at the crack of dawn, another part just felt tired. And a little irritable after being rebuffed earlier.

“Hey, Daryl?” Rick said, obviously aware that he was awake. “Have you _done_ all this shit?”

Daryl watched him flip a few pages. “Ain’t never had a guy’s _arm_ up my ass…”

“Hmm.” Rick turned a couple more pages, frowning at the images, studying them with interest. He held one page open in front of Daryl for him to see. “So can a guy really come without having his dick touched at all?”

“Yeah.”

“You ever done it?”

Daryl pushed the magazine back in front of Rick. “Maybe.”

“Can you show me sometime?”

“That yer fantasy today?” Daryl snapped. “Wanna watch me jerk myself off through the back door?”

Rick stiffened, still staring at the magazine, and Daryl thought he saw a flush creeping up the man’s neck. Good. He thought about telling Rick to go back in that drawer and look for a blow-up doll, so he could go back to sleep. _Find yerself another fuckbuddy._

Daryl threw an arm over his face and sighed loudly, then heard Rick drop the magazine on the bed between them. The other man rolled over to face him, and propped his head on his elbow.

“You got a fantasy?” Rick asked softly.

“Yeah, I do,” Daryl said with barely concealed anger, his face still hidden. “I got a fantasy that someone really gives a shit.”

Rick was silent for a minute, and Daryl began to regret showing his soft underbelly to someone who, just a few weeks ago, had tried to brain him with a frying pan. He suddenly felt intensely vulnerable—a feeling which normally caused him to run for high ground, hissing and spitting if pursued. Both his hands curled into fists, and a cold tremor ran through him—but he stayed put.

“You think I don’t give a shit? About what—about _you?_

Daryl shrugged. “I dunno, do ya?”

Rick sounded hurt. “Of course I do.”

Daryl reached down between them and wrapped his fingers around the magazine, crushing and crinkling the paper in his grip, but his other arm stayed draped over his face.

“Y’know, I’ve had enougha this shit for a lifetime,” he ground out. “Enough kinky, screwed-up, random boot-knocking with strangers to fill a hundred of these.” He shook the magazine in his fist. “My fantasy ain’t in here.”

“So… what _is_ your fantasy?” Rick murmured.

“ _Pfft_. Never mind.”

“No… c’mon, tell me.” Rick laid his fingers carefully on Daryl’s arm, but Daryl twitched away from him.

Daryl felt cornered, every nerve in his body telling him to run. Instead, he laid there silently trembling and grinding his teeth for what felt like an eternity, until he just couldn’t stand the silence any longer. Couldn’t stand the truth burning in his throat like a hot coal, making his eyes water.

“Just wanna _make love_ ,” he muttered, barely audibly. “Tired ‘o _fuckin’_.”

He heard Rick lie back again on his own pillow, and he began to worry his lip between his teeth, pressing his forearm hard against his eyes in a desperate attempt to keep the tears from streaking hot down his face. _Dixon, you stupid fuckin’ idiot… don’t you dare…_

“Hey,” Rick said, touching his arm again. “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be back in a bit with some breakfast.”

Daryl slowly uncovered his face as he heard Rick pad down the staircase. He laid there staring at the gray sky while Rick puttered in the bathroom. Then he finally sat up and wrapped his arms around his bent legs, feeling the shaking slowly subside. Rick clanged around in the kitchen, and the delicious scent of frying meat began to waft up the stairs. His stomach growled, and he wondered idly whether the hollow feeling there was hunger, or a different kind of yearning.

Glancing over at the nightstand, he spotted another ubiquitous framed photo of Nick and Tony, and reached over to snatch it up and give it the stinkeye. They seemed so normal. Were they in love? He longed to know what that meant, even if just for a day. Did it mean having a partner who knew you as intimately as he imagined they knew each other? Who trusted and confided in you? Someone who was always there and always had your back?

Rick was all those things to him—hell, Merle had been, too. So what was he missing? Love? He probably wouldn’t know love if it bit him in the ass, he thought.

Love seemed about as real to him as Tinkerbell and talking rabbits. Ghosts, yes. Voodoo, yes. Skunk Ape, maybe. Chupacabra, for sure. But love? Merle had loved blow. His old man loved Bud. His mama loved Winstons. He loved hunting, and his old Triumph Bonneville and the ’84 Camaro he once had for a year until Merle wrecked it. Women talked about love when they wanted something from you. Men talked about love when they were beating the shit out of you.

“I beat you boys ‘cause I love ya!” his drunken old man blubbered after nearly breaking a bottle across his head. “Don’t want ya’ to grow up to be no thief! No liar! No pansy ass faggot!”

“You know I love ya’ little brother,” Merle said with a wink after knocking him on his ass in the ditch outside a bar one night. Then his brother turned around and broke the man’s nose that Daryl was with. Because Daryl had actually smiled at the guy, and Merle smelled a freebie comin’ on. “You’ll thank me later for keepin’ ya outta trouble.”

Worst of all was the sack of shit who’d hung around Highway 26 Big Stop for two days, and brought Daryl to his motel room a second time. The guy was a lot of work, but he paid double, so Daryl endured some crazy shit twice over in hopes of finally having enough to buy another pickup truck. And there he was, pants around his ankles, kneeling on the stained carpet with bedbugs crawling up his legs and this guys’ jizz all over his face, and the ugly fucker had the nerve to grab his chin and tilt his face up, look down at him tenderly and say… _I love you._ Daryl lurched to his feet and punched the man squarely in the nose, wiped his face on the curtain, and tore ass out the door.

He wouldn’t know real love if he had it, and if he had it, it might just scare the shit out of him, he reckoned. He wished he had someone to ask about it—someone besides Rick.

Were Nick and Tony in love? Is that why they looked so happy? Was love even real, or possible? After everything that had happened to him… to Rick… was it possible between them? Could Rick ever really love him, or was it all just fun and games? He stared hard at the photo, like it was some kind of damn oracle. As if the answers he needed might jump out at him if he looked hard enough.

_C’mon, you guys—help a brother out._

Eventually, Rick plodded up the stairs with a plate of venison and a big glass of water and clambered back onto the bed beside him. Daryl looked over and noticed that the meat was cut into bite-sized chunks. He glanced up at Rick, who gave him a little smile.

Rick pinched a piece of meat between his thumb and forefinger, swabbed it in the juices on the plate, and held it up to Daryl’s mouth. Daryl lifted a hand to take it, but Rick pulled it back, and then held it to Daryl’s lips again. “Take it from me,” Rick urged.

So Daryl opened his mouth, and Rick inserted the morsel delicately, dragging his thumb against Daryl’s lower lip on the way out. He smiled again. “Good?”

Daryl frowned and chewed, trying to identify the flavor.

“I cooked it in the last of that sherry we were savin.’” Rick popped a piece into his own mouth, then reached out again to press another bite to Daryl’s lips.

Daryl took it and chewed some more, staring at Rick, flummoxed by the other man’s behavior.

When Rick held the third piece out to him, Daryl pulled back and glared at him. “Rick, what the hell’re you _doin’_? I can feed myself.”

Rick cocked his head and gave Daryl an amused look. “I’m makin’ love to you, dumbass.”

Daryl bolted. Vaulted off the bed, snatched up his pants and nearly wrecked himself stumbling down the spiral staircase. If not for Rick’s careful wrapping job lastnight, he would probably have torn every stitch from his calf. He was shoving his feet into his boots by the back door when Rick caught up to him and flattened himself against the door. Daryl stood up, panting, his heart pounding, and glared daggers at his friend.

“Get the hell outta my way,” he growled.

Rick fixed him with that pleading, blue-eyed gaze that always did him in.

“No, Daryl, c’mon. If you think I’m making fun of you, I’m not,” Rick appeased, holding up both hands.

Daryl glowered at him.

“Look… Lori always said that foreplay starts first thing in the morning, and… I know that’s a chick thing… but what I liked about it when I gave it a shot was the anticipation, y’know? I was just tryin’ for a little buildup…”

Daryl’s scowl deepened, and the two men stood staring at each other for several moments, until Rick’s expression finally caused Daryl to doubt his reaction. He took a couple deep breaths, slowing his heartrate, and let his shoulders relax a little. Maybe he was being stupid…

“I really… I really do want to make love to you.” Rick winced and bit the inside of his cheek. “Goddamn that’s weird to say, but I…”

“Why?” Daryl demanded.

Rick reached over and fiddled with a matchbook lying on the table by the door. “Why? Well, ‘cause you deserve to be happy, an’ I… I’m here for you. I do give a shit. You mean the world to me.” He flicked his eyes up to Daryl, and a sudden flush rose up his neck again. “Unless you didn’t mean _me…”_

Daryl snorted, suddenly feeling shy and blushing a little himself. He looked down and shuffled his feet. “Maybe _yer_ the dumbass.”

A grin broke out on Rick’s face. “C’mere,” he said, and laying his palms aside Daryl’s unshaven jaws, Rick tugged his friend close and did something he hadn’t before—he kissed him.

The press of Rick’s soft lips, the sudden closeness of his hard body, the warm hands on his face… Daryl took a step forward, pushing Rick’s back up against the solidness of the door, grabbing the man by the shoulders, leaning into him, into the kiss.

Daryl couldn’t remember the last time he’d kissed someone he actually _wanted_ to kiss, and damn, he wanted to kiss Rick. His whole world shrank then and there to a tangle of lips and tongues, hot and slippery-wet and savory with venison, which forever after would taste like Rick’s mouth to him.

They kissed breathlessly and bruisingly hard, driving their tongues down each other’s gullets; then caught their breath, sucking and nibbling each other’s lips tenderly, caressing each other’s faces and carding hands through bedhead hair. Rick finally dragged his dangerous mouth down Daryl’s bared throat and back up along his jaw, then chuckled, his laugh vibrating into Daryl’s chest.

“What?” Daryl muttered.

“Never kissed nobody with a beard before…”

“Yeah, well yer razor stubble is givin’ me a _rash_ , Sasquatch.”

“Want me to stop?” Rick panted in his ear.

“Did I say that?”

Rick captured Daryl’s mouth again, but his warm hands left Daryl’s face, and a moment later, Rick was tugging at the fly of Daryl’s jeans, then sliding them down over his hips. Daryl was startled to suddenly find, by the touch of Rick’s hairy thigh on his own, that they were both bare-ass naked.

Rick grabbed Daryl’s ass and rocked his hips forward and the feeling of their hard cocks sliding together made both of them gasp.

_“Damn,”_ Daryl croaked. He felt Rick lift a leg and wrap it around his hip, and he pinned his friend to the door, thrusting against him again. Rick pushed back, and in moments, they were both moaning and panting into each other’s mouths, working themselves rapidly into a sweaty, slippery, humping frenzy—until Rick pushed Daryl away gently.

“Hold on, loverboy,” he panted. “I know this ain’t what you want.” He caught his breath, hands on Daryl’s chest, their members red and glistening and bobbing between them. “How do you want me to make love to you?”

Daryl looked down at their eager dicks, and back up at Rick’s bedroom eyes. “You wanna fuck?”

***

When Daryl thought about Nick and Tony doing it in the big bed, he never pictured it doggy style. It was always face to face, and maybe they took turns bottoming, but they always looked into each other’s eyes, talked, kissed, laughed. Like two people who gave a shit. And maybe Rick could never give that much of a shit about him, but Daryl could imagine, couldn’t he? And Rick was doing a good job of at least pretending.

He’d kissed Daryl all over, touched him with amazing tenderness, told him he was sexy, admired his dick up close. It was scary as hell.

And now Daryl opened his eyes to gaze up at Rick, crouching between his bent knees. The man looked stupid with lust, eyes hooded and lips slack, one hand splayed over Daryl’s navel, and the other slowly inserting a lubed dildo into Daryl’s ass. Rick’s eyes were glued on the point of insertion.

“Talk to me, Daryl,” Rick murmured. “Is it ok?”

“Course it’s ok—you ain’t gonna hurt me.”

Rick groaned as if it were his own ass being impaled, and Daryl glanced down to see another crystalline bead appear at the head of Rick’s cock. He grabbed his own slick penis and gave it a couple of strokes, unable not to. He’d never imagined it could be like this. Could this be real? How could it be? He whipsawed between exhilaration and terror. He wanted Rick so bad—but he was so fucking amped up… He was a long way from twenty-something, and at this rate he’d shoot his wad the minute Rick entered him. He tried to breathe deeply, to relax inside, to allow the dildo to fill him pleasantly with each slow thrust.

Rick took his warm hand off Daryl’s stomach and placed it on his thigh, pushing his good leg open a little more.

“Ok now,” Daryl told him shakily, trying his best to keep his wits about him, “take that thing out and gimme two fingers. Hook ‘em a little like yer tryin’ to scratch my belly.”

He watched Rick frown in concentration as he removed the dildo, then slicked his fingers up on Daryl’s dick, and slowly pushed them inside, following directions.

“Feel around up there and find a walnut. Keep feelin.’ Hold up, that’s too deep, you ain’t noodlin’ catfish. Oh… oh yeah, right _there…_ hell yeah… that’s the magic spot…”

Daryl reached up behind him and grabbed the slats of the headboard, anchoring himself, imagining Nick or Tony doing the same. Rick’s fingers inside him were sending lightning bolts of pleasure through his lower body, and as he let out a groan, he felt Rick crawling up and stretching out on top of him, kissing his nipple, his jaw, pushing the hair from his face with his free hand.

“You ready?” Rick purred.

“Yeah, do it.”

Then there was nothing but Rick, all around, chest to chest and balls deep inside him, and he clutched his friend’s ass with one hand and held tight to the headboard with the other—one hand for heaven and one for earth, he thought. Rick lay very still for a moment, cradled between Daryl’s bent knees.

“Fuck it’s so good,” he whimpered against Daryl’s throat.

Daryl’s thighs began to tremble. “Go man,” he whispered. “Let’s bang.”

Rick raised himself on his elbows and Daryl held his gaze as his friend began to thrust, slowly and carefully at first, then faster and harder as Daryl nodded at him. Rick bit his lip, and a drop of sweat plopped off the end of his nose onto Daryl’s face. Daryl dug his knees into Rick’s ribcage, despite his shaking legs.

“Is that ok?” Rick panted, “Does it feel good?”

“Pull out a little more,” Daryl murmured, and Rick did, and a slight cant of the hips suddenly sent Daryl to his happy place. Every thrust of Rick’s cock was now pounding him in the sweet spot, and he began to lose control, sex face taking over, mind going blank, balls drawing up. He was dimly aware of Rick moaning and panting, kissing his neck, touching his skin, licking his armpit. He felt like Frankenstein’s monster lying on the table, being jolted over and over by a thousand volts of electricity, coming violently to life.

Then suddenly he was shouting, writhing, gasping for air, and Rick’s whole body shuddered atop him and drove him down into the mattress, Rick smothering his cry in the bedclothes as he came, too.

It took a while for both of them to gather their senses, and they had nowhere else to be, so they contented themselves with lying tangled together, sticky and sweaty, boneless and languorous, for some time after. Daryl felt as though he were floating, and he lay there mystified by the big, expansive, warm feelings coursing through him. Rick lay half atop him, and Daryl couldn’t stop touching the man, stroking his shoulders, twirling his curls. Rick finger painted lazily on Daryl’s wet belly, then reached over and drew his initials on Daryl’s bicep.

“Know what I like best about you?” Rick rumbled against his chest, a hint of mischief in his voice.

“Hmm?” Daryl grunted, carding his fingers through Rick’s hair.

“You’ve got arms just like Mister Charles.”

Daryl snorted, then squirmed as Rick pinched a nipple. He gave Rick’s curls a tug. “Know what I like best about you, ‘squatch?”

“What?”

“Just now decided it’s yer hair. Like it all over you. Yer all sorts a’ furry and curly and your beard kicks ass.”

Rick chuckled, then sighed happily. “So… was it good? Was it what you wanted?”

“You’re what I want,” Daryl said, surprising himself with the admission, and not really caring. “So yeah, it was good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! This was a naughty one, and a little mushy, but paradise is soon to be lost. Hope you liked it! Please leave me feedback and let me know. I live for it! Thanks for your patience with me!


	6. Operation Snow White

He should have known better.

He shouldn’t have let his guard down.

He’d gotten sloppy – they both had. Distracted. Lulled by a false sense of security.

And this is where a false sense of security lands you, he thought grimly. He looked over at Rick in the fading light—his friend was still focusing hard on his left foot, working it back and forth, up and down, progress by millimeters. Grunting with the effort, sweat dripping off his face and bared chest, despite the damp cold. Sweat mingled with drops of blood.

Daryl shivered, and ignoring the burning pain across his shoulders, he began to move again, slowly and carefully, sliding his wrists up and down against the rough bark at his back. Pressing as hard as he dared—as hard as his chafing skin and cramping muscles would allow—but not hard enough, he hoped, to slice himself open on the hard plastic and bleed freely.

***

It had been tough that morning to get out of bed—curled bare-assed into Rick’s embrace under the down comforter, he was cozy as a baby rabbit in a nest. Rick spooned up behind him, an arm around Daryl’s waist, warm thighs a little moist and sweaty nestled behind his own. No morning wood—that had been knocked down a few hours earlier. His mouth quirked up a little, remembering the insistent press of Rick’s body, the sleepy hand jobs in the dark, Rick pretending to be incoherent again and calling him “Scarlett.”

His smirk turned into a grimace as he also remembered—when he tried to move—that they’d been too lazy and comfy to clean up afterward and had simply fallen back to sleep covered in spunk.

Cringing, Daryl peeled himself away from Rick, eliciting a yelp of protest from his drowsy bedmate as they lost a few leg hairs in the separation. Daryl stood up, stretched, and turned to cover his grumbling friend back up. “Suck it up, man,” he teased, “You got lots more where those came from,” and headed downstairs.

By the time Rick got up, Daryl had already tended to his crusty crotch, put some clothes on and gone outside to check the firewood situation. He returned to the cabin with an armload of wood from the shed, to see Rick cleaning the ashes from the stove.

“Gonna need a good, warm fire tonight,” he announced. “Today we’ll get that meat sliced up and dryin.’”

The deer had hung long enough, he’d decided—it was time to try to preserve some of it, beyond what would fit in the little refrigerator for immediate use.

So the two men set about butchering the carcass, Rick following Daryl’s directions, and spent the day carving thin pieces of meat and hanging them over the makeshift racks they’d built the previous day around the woodstove. A little classic rock shuffled on the iPod while they worked, Daryl threw a few slices in the pan when they grew hungry, and the day passed by quickly and companionably. They spoke little, but their silence felt full to Daryl; they communicated frequently through gestures, elbows, grunts and facial expressions, as always. And now, as the mood struck, the more wayward, suggestive touch, glance or smirk.

At one point during the day, Daryl found himself waiting for Rick to finish carving up the last of the front quarter. He stood, leaning against the kitchen counter, watching Rick’s bent head as the man worked, a stray curl bobbing in the air—and it struck him. He was happy. Not just _found a dollar in my pocket_ happy, or _it’s Saturday morning_ happy, but a sort of bone-deep happy. Was this _joy?_ he wondered. He’d felt it before, but only by himself—maybe spending the morning at a beautiful, quiet fishing hole, or working on his bike, when everything just seemed to flow and go right, and he lost himself in the task. He was losing himself being with Rick—and it just felt right. Rick glanced up at him and raised an eyebrow, and Daryl realized he must have looked a little goofy. When Rick handed him the tray, he snorted and took it, but was unable to wipe the little smile off his face.

Late in the afternoon, Rick and Daryl stood together in the living room hanging the last of the meat strips, both of them singing _Born to Run_ rather badly, when a high-pitched scream outside tore the air and froze them to the floor.

“Shit…” Rick breathed, and the two men glanced at each other, eyes blown wide.

Someone was at the door, pounding with small fists, and Daryl’s mouth dropped open at the sound of a young woman’s voice, “OhmyGodhelpme! Please, I know you’re in there! They’re coming!”

He yanked the knife from its sheath on his belt and leapt forward, but Rick scrambled up behind him, snatching the pistol up from the coffee table, and grabbed at his elbow.

“No, dammit!” Rick hissed. “Don’t open the door!”

“Rick…”

“PLEASEPLEASE! OHGOD!” the voice and the banging grew more insistent and frantic, “THEY’RECOMINGLETMEIN!”

“Rick, shit, we gotta let her in!”

Rick dashed over to peer out a hole in the blankets covering the front window. “I don’t see anything…” he muttered desperately. “Can’t see anybody!”

If Daryl knew one thing it was that he was NOT going to let this young woman die on the front porch—not if he could help it.

“PLEASE! HURRY!” she cried, sobbing, and Daryl couldn’t stand it—he unbarred the door with one hand, holding the knife with the other, knowing Rick would cover him, and reached out to snatch the woman’s arm and drag her in.

One moment his foot was braced against the door, his hand clamped around a thin arm—and the next, his knee drove itself back into his gut and he was flying backwards, slamming to the pine floor like a ton of bricks. His head bounced off the planks like a basketball, the wind whooshing out of his lungs. Stunned, he lay there wide-eyed and breathless for a moment, his brain trying to process the fact that he was holding a struggling girl’s arm in a death grip, while strange faces and bodies swarmed into the cabin amidst a pop-pop of gunfire.

He finally gasped in a breath, then another, his eyes meeting those of the pretty, dark-haired, ponytailed girl straddling his waist. “Let _go_ of me,” she growled through her teeth, and Daryl lurched up, head spinning, trying to sweep the girl around behind him to protect her.

“Fuck!” she cried, “make him let go!”

Daryl made an attempt at rising, but found to his surprise that his legs wouldn’t cooperate—then everything went black.

When he came to, minutes later, he found himself on his knees, his hands and feet bound tightly behind him. Someone was holding him up painfully by the elbow, and he groaned inadvertently. He lifted his eyes, his head throbbing, and scanned the cabin to see several men and at least two women, in defensive positions behind furniture and door frames, holding guns and knives of various sizes at the ready. A cold, steel barrel, he suddenly realized, pressed firmly against his temple.

“Okay now,” a young, blond man with long dreadlocks was yelling, “you shot my buddy Steve in the shoulder! Unless you want John over there to shoot _your_ buddy in the _head_ , you’re going to slide your weapons out here pronto and come out nice and slow!”

Though Daryl was still facing the front door, he imagined that Rick had holed up in the back bedroom. That seemed to be the way everyone was facing. Sure enough, Rick’s voice floated out of the rear of the house. “Let him go! Just let him walk out the door, give him five minutes, and I’ll come out!”

Dreadlocks laughed. “You must think we’re pretty stupid! That ain’t gonna happen. You come out here now, or we’ll kill him, then come after you. You’re outnumbered and outgunned, partner. You got no choice.”

Daryl looked from face to face—his captors looked like a bunch of college kids. A couple of them looked to be scared shitless. The ponytailed girl was not one of those. She was now crouched by the door, a rifle in her hand. She glanced back at him, caught his stare, and smirked, shaking her head.

“We’re good people,” Daryl blurted loudly. “I was tryin’ to help your girl! Just let us go. You can have this place, all our meat, all our stuff… Jus’ let us go!”

“Yeah, damn, it does smell real good in here,” somebody muttered.

“I’m counting to ten!” Dreadlocks yelled.

He got to three before Daryl heard bootsteps coming out of the bedroom, and a weapon sliding across the floor. Daryl craned his neck around and was just barely able to see Rick, standing in the hallway with his arms in the air. Dreadlocks picked up the gun and tossed it to a girl, then nodded at a kid in a baseball cap, and the two of them stepped up and frisked Rick while the rest held him in their sights.

Rick stared the man down the entire time. “What are you gonna do with us?” he finally growled.

Without a word, Dreadlocks sighed, pulled out a revolver and pistol-whipped him.

“No!” Daryl croaked, and the man standing over him gave his thigh a painful kick.

Rick, meanwhile, staggered from the blow to his head, but took a moment to actually fall to his knees and disappear from Daryl’s view behind some furniture.

A few minutes later, Daryl was dragged unceremoniously through the open door and out into the slushy snow by two men, followed by two more manhandling Rick, who appeared similarly bound and only semi-conscious. They all paused on the deck and turned to look back at Dreadlocks, who stood just outside the doorway, rubbing his knuckles. Daryl struggled to stand up on his hobbled feet, keeping his face expressionless, and faced the man as well.

“Man, we’re just like you,” he said, giving it one last ditch effort with their leader. “We just wanna live. We’re on our way to meet Rick’s kids. We don’ want no more trouble—just let us go.”

Dreadlocks snorted. “Wish we could, man. But been there, done that, didn’t work.” The man glanced back at a slit-eyed woman, who appeared on the threshold just behind him. “What do you say, Queenie? Your call this time.” Her face was hard; something about her reminded him of Carol, and Daryl realized with a sinking feeling that she would give them no quarter.

Her narrow eyes squinted at him, and Daryl raised his chin and squinted back. She scowled, and after a moment of thought, waved her hand dismissively at them. “Operation Snow White,” she tossed out, and disappeared back into the cabin. Dreadlocks followed.

“Jesus Christ,” one of his captors grumbled, looking at the others. “Again? Is she serious?”

“As a heart attack. She _is_ the wicked queen, ya know.”

Somebody snickered and somebody else swore, then Daryl found himself being dragged down the steps by the elbows and hauled face-down across the lawn behind Rick, both of them leaving furrows in the slush with their feet.

“The fuck is Operation Snow White?” he demanded. _And are you assholes the seven dwarfs?_

“Where the hell are we doin’ this?” a guy in a Boston Bruins jacket groused, ignoring the question. “No sense haulin’ these fuckers ten miles.”

Rick grunted and cursed, struggling a little, no doubt jarred back to awareness by the pain across his shoulders and in his wrists, Daryl thought.

“Ain’t you never seen _Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs?”_ said the guy with big horse teeth. “You know… the Wicked Queen tells the Huntsman to take Snow White out into the woods and kill ‘er and bring back her heart.”

“Christ, last time it took Ronnie half an hour to cut that guy’s heart out. Be easier to just cut off their heads.”

_Are you fucking kidding me?_

“You gonna _eat_ us, too?” Rick snapped.

“Hell no, that’d be sick,” somebody quipped, and the other three laughed humorlessly.

“Well maybe _you’ve_ never seen _Snow White,”_ Daryl informed them all, “’Cause the Huntsman don’t kill her. He lets ‘er go and brings the queen back a pig’s heart. How the hell ya’ think she ends up fuckin’ around with the seven dwarfs?”

Daryl caught Rick’s backward glance and raised eyebrow. _How the hell did you know that?_

“No shit!” Horseteeth stopped hauling on Daryl’s left arm and stood still a minute, grinning. “Well, I’ll be. I done forgot that part.”

“Jesus, I’ll bet she did fuck around with those dwarfs, too,” somebody else giggled.

“Christ,” Rick spat.

“Look,” Daryl said, making an effort to make eye contact with Bruins, now that the group had stilled. “I got a deer heart and a liver chillin’ in a plastic box in the crawl space back there. Only a few days old. Show ‘em to the queen. Just let us go. We ain’t comin’ back.”

Bruins brightened, looked around the group. “That’d work!”

“Why don’t you just give ‘em a poison apple and put ‘em to sleep!” said the guy in a black baseball cap. “Jesus, this ain’t a fairy tale. We gotta kill ‘em no matter what. And Queenie’s gotta buy it.”

The men resumed their dragging, and Daryl started to worry about his shoulder dislocating.

“Man, ain’t you guys tired of killin,’ yet?” Bruins complained. “I dunno about y’all, but the novelty’s worn off for me. Ain’t enough livin’ left in the world—why we gotta make more dead ones?”

“’Cause every time we take pity on some asshole it comes back to bite us,” replied Black Hat.

Daryl snorted. “We ain’t the ones that bite.” _At least_ I’m _not…_

“No gettin’ around it. Nothin’ personal—even if shithead here did shoot Steve,” Black Hat said with a jerk on Rick’s arm. “We let these guys go, next thing they’ll be back with six more people or a fuckin’ rocket launcher to kill _us_ and take their stuff back. It never ends.”

“It ends _here,”_ Rick growled. “We’re on our way to DC and we’re not staying. You let us go and we’ll just leave. It’s just the two of us. Why would we give you any more trouble?”

Up on a knoll facing the road, Bruins and Horseteeth set about tying Daryl to an eight-inch hickory. They jerked his arms back hard and tied him through the elbows with nylon rope, leaving his hands zip-tied behind his back; his ankles, also zip-tied, were similarly bound to the tree. He gritted his teeth in silence and watched Rick being bound to an oak about twelve feet in front of him.

“Why the fuck didn’t you just shoot us in the head back on the porch?” Rick demanded. “Would’ve been a hell of a lot easier for everybody.”

“True, said Black Hat. “But this way we decoy the biters away from the house. And we keep the mess off the porch.”

He pulled a wicked looking knife with a sawblade edge out of a sheath on his belt, and inspected it for sharpness. “See, Ronnie took half an hour ‘cause he didn’t have _this,”_ he told his crew. He walked up to Rick and grabbed him by the chin, twisting his head to the right, and Daryl’s whole body suddenly seized and stiffened in horror. _Nonononono…_

Black Hat drew the knife carefully down Rick’s cheek, shaving a smooth swath through the stubble with the razor-sharp blade. Rick stood stock-still, eyes rolling to keep Black Hat in his field of view, a shitstorm of hatred brewing behind his stony glare.

The man let go of Rick and laughed cruelly, turning to Daryl, the knife glinting in his hand in the fading light. “Plenty sharp, old man—when I cut him up, you’ll feel it more than he will.”

“It’s startin’ to get dark,” said Bruins, “I think we oughta get back.”

Horseteeth finished tying Daryl’s legs, giving the knots a test tug, and grunted assent from behind the tree.

“I’m tellin’ ya, man, I ain’t got no stomach left for this,” Bruins went on. “He said there was some deer guts in the crawl space. Queenie ain’t never gonna know the difference. Even if she does, to hell with her.”

“Speakin’ of stomach,” said the quiet one, “I’m starving. These guys ain’t goin’ anywhere. Let’s just go eat some venison.”

“The hell’s the matter with you slackers? We ain’t finished the job.” Black Hat stepped aside so everyone could see Rick. “See, the reason that Ronnie couldn’t fish that guy’s heart out was cause he went about it all wrong. He went straight in from the chest, and had to try to crack the guy’s ribs to get the thing out.” Black Hat poked the point of the knife carelessly into Rick’s left breast for emphasis, and Daryl could hear his friend’s sharp intake of breath. A tiny spot of red bloomed on the light blue denim shirt Rick was wearing, then began to grow. Rick’s face didn’t change, and he didn’t take his eyes off Black Hat.

Up until a moment ago, Daryl hadn’t allowed room for fear, but now he felt it creeping in, clamping frozen fingers around his heart, raising goosebumps all over the surface of his body. A shiver ran through him, and he fought to keep his face blank, his breathing steady. _It ain’t over til it’s over,_ he reminded himself. And there had been plenty of times before when he was pretty sure it was over, and it wasn’t.

“Now _this_ is the way to do it,” Black Hat declared, and Daryl stiffened again, fists clenching helplessly behind him, as the man turned and yanked Rick’s shirt wide open, popping the buttons off, then undid Rick’s belt and unbuttoned his jeans, giving the fly a tug. Rick was suddenly bared from pubic hair to throat, and Black Hat stepped back again. “See, you take the knife and you gut him like a fish, from _here”_ and he jabbed the knife into Rick’s pubic bone, “to _here,”_ and another drop of blood welled at the top of his sternum. “Open him up good. Then, when all his insides fall out, you reach up in his rib cage,” he said, pantomiming the action, "and you grab that sucker and give it a good yank, huh? Ready, boys? Might wanna stand back…”

Rick’s eyes finally met Daryl’s, and Daryl realized the irony of the situation. Now that he was about to, Rick no longer wanted to die. Rick’s face betrayed no fear, but his clear, bright blue eyes bored into Daryl’s now, and Daryl realized something else. Rick didn’t want to die looking at Black Hat. He chose to see Daryl. So Daryl blocked out everything else—the silent trees, the oncoming night, the men yammering, the damp cold and the pain, even the fear—and focused on Rick’s eyes. He would see Rick, until seeing was no more.

They stared at each other hard, Daryl’s heart pounding in his chest, and time seemed to stop for a few moments… then start again, as Daryl realized Rick was still intact. And their captors had suddenly focused their attention elsewhere.

“Shit,” the quiet one was hissing, “There’s one, two, three, four… looks like a little herd comin’. We best get outta here.

Daryl shifted his gaze down the road and saw the walkers approaching in the distance. Black hat swore, and sheathed his knife again.

“Well boys,” he said with a wink to Daryl and a head jerk to Rick. “Maybe Snow White here lucked out. Or maybe these dwarfs a comin’ are a little nastier than the Disney variety.”

“We just gonna leave ‘em here alive?” Bruins asked, grimacing.

“You complainin’? The biters are gonna be doin’ your job. Let’s go, Huntsmen.”

The four men darted across the road, one by one, and disappeared up the hill, leaving Daryl and Rick alone on the knoll. Daryl looked back over at Rick—clothes hanging open, he was bleeding slowly from his forehead, chest and groin, little red streams trickling down into his beard, through his chest hair, down into his jeans.

“How far?” Rick whispered.

Daryl held perfectly still—he was the one facing the road, the first one the walkers would notice. But Rick was the one looking and smelling like Sunday dinner.

“Hundred n’ fifty yards,” he said through his teeth. He could hear them now, rasping breath and scraping feet, hissing and growling at one another as they approached.

“Got a blade in my boot,” Rick breathed. “Ain’t enough time to get it…”

Of course. After Terminus, Rick had taped a small knife inside his boot. If they could live through this herd of walkers—if Rick could get to the blade somehow before the damp and the cold rendered them numb and senseless—they had a chance of escape, Daryl thought. If. If.

They stood still, endlessly still, as the walkers continued to approach, taking the easy path up the road. Daryl’s muscles had begun cramping all over, and he desperately wanted to try to move, to stretch, to ease the pain somehow, but he didn’t dare. He could begin to pick out details of the first walkers—a tattered dress, a black tie, a grey ponytail. He looked over at Rick, who gave him a steady, encouraging gaze and a tiny nod. Seeing him. _Hold it together. It’ll be over soon—one way or another._

Then, a little miracle happened. A twig snapped in the forest, to Daryl’s left, and his eyes sought the source of the sound. He stared hard into the twilight gloom, heart beating out of his chest, seeing nothing for a moment… then came antlers. Followed by nose, ears and big, brown eyes. The most magnificent twelve-point buck Daryl had ever seen stepped into the little clearing between the two men, blocking Rick from sight. It stopped to look at Daryl, twitching an ear, darting a tongue out to lick its lips—not ten feet away. Turning its head, it gave a glance to Rick, tail waggling. Then it continued, walking slowly down through the slushy ditch and out to the road, where it stopped on the yellow line, head held high, facing the parade of walkers. For several seconds the buck stood, watching and listening and scenting, the noise of the herd building as the walkers noticed a target and their lurching took on new vigor. Then he turned, in no apparent hurry, raised his flag and trotted straight off down the middle of the road.

Had Daryl not been tied to a tree, someone could’ve knocked him over with a feather. Wide-eyed, still not daring to move, he looked over at Rick and saw his friend grinning like an idiot. _Christ, what’s next, little singin’ bluebirds on his shoulder?_

Once the herd (Daryl counted 34) had passed by in pursuit of the buck, it took nearly thirty minutes for Rick to work his left foot loose from his boot, and at least that long again for him to peel the knife from the boot using cold-numbed toes. Along with Daryl’s new hope for survival came new anxiety, and time to worry. Darkness had fallen, the temperature was dropping, and drizzle soaked into their inadequate clothing, their worn boots already soaked through with slush. The weather was the new enemy, and if they couldn’t hurry up and release themselves, the battle would be lost. Daryl slowly dragged his wrists up and down against the shaggy bark of the tree, trying not to make too much noise, trying not to rub his wrists completely raw.

The anxiety ushered in anger, too—anger at himself for being so careless, so cavalier about their security. For falling like Dopey for the old Snow White banging on the cottage door trick. Anger at Rick for giving himself up so easily when he had a gun and a potential exit via the back window. Anger at the assholes who’d left them tied to a tree to be eaten or freeze to death, the latter seeming increasingly more likely.

Rick grunted and strained, trying to contort himself to bring the knife to his bound hands with his foot.

“You ain’t a ballerina,” Daryl finally breathed in a stage whisper. “Ya don’t bend that way. Put the knife down behind the tree and slide down.”

“That’ll take too long!” Rick whispered back.

“All we got’s time. Go, dammit.”

Rick took his advice and began to wriggle and shimmy, millimeter by slow millimeter, down the tree.

Daryl watched, shivering, trying to wiggle his toes inside his boots to keep them from going completely numb. Slowly moving his wrists up and down. Trying to ignore the intense, cramping pain in his shoulders and across his back and chest. He tried to think warm thoughts: Of being in bed with Rick; of sitting in the Georgia sun; a pizza oven on a summer day. Soon he _did_ feel warmer, less angry, a little sleepy…

Next thing he knew, he was falling, falling, and all he could hear was Rick’s voice, sounding desperate.

“Daryl… wake up. C’mon, bro, wake up for me. Daryl… please… c’mon. We gotta go now. Daryl… Goddammit, Daryl!

He could feel hands rubbing his numb fingers, patting his face, then suddenly, the press of a kiss on the corner of his mouth.

With a monumental effort, Daryl opened his eyes and looked up to see Rick’s silhouette against the dark sky. He was surprised to find that he’d indeed fallen, and was lying on the wet ground with his head on Rick’s lap. He tried to speak, but didn’t recognize his own words. His limbs felt like lead.

“C’mon man,” Rick murmured. “Can you get up? You’re cold as hell, an’ so am I. We gotta get out of here and get warm or we’re goners.”

With his last ounce of strength and Rick’s help, he heaved himself to his numb feet and they staggered off the knoll and down to the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, I have no idea where the fairy tale theme came from in this chapter, but I went with it. Now I am going to be up all night thinking of names for the seven zombie dwarfs: wheezy, stinky, freaky... Not so much smut in this chapter, but come on, life isn't all about sex all the time :) Don't worry, there'll be more to come. Please comment and let me know if you liked it. I live for comments!


	7. Feral

Rick struck a match and held it, smoldering, to the papers in the woodstove—then watched it fizzle out. He struck another with shaking hands, and another, snapping it uselessly in half.

“ _Shit!”_

“It’s ok,” Daryl murmured, leaning over Rick’s shoulder. “Jus’ go easy.” His words slurred together.

Rick took a deep, shaky breath and willed his fingers to steady, then struck another match, which flared to life. Holding his breath, he touched it to the paper; it caught briefly, but quickly extinguished.

“Too damp. Everything’s too fuckin’ damp,” he growled.

“Hold up,” Daryl muttered, and disappeared back toward the kitchen, blankets hanging off his shoulders and dragging behind him.

Pulling the quilt tighter around his nakedness, Rick knelt by the stove and waited in the dark, shivering violently, until Daryl returned and shoved a lump of something into the firebox.

“What’s ‘at?” he asked.

“Dryer lint. Try again.”

Rick carefully attempted another match, which reluctantly lit, and he quickly held it against the lint wad. A flame leapt up brightly, and Rick hurriedly fed it, nurtured it, blew on it, fed it some more, prayed over it. Soon some papers had caught, then some cardboard, pencils, a couple of notepads, some paperback books. Daryl kept handing him things and he kept sliding them in until finally the fire burned merrily, and he began to feel a little heat.

The two men huddled up to the small stove, greedily absorbing the warmth. Rick’s fuzzy brain knew they were both hypothermic, and it was a wonder they were still upright and functioning at all. Daryl swayed and shook, and Rick grabbed him by the arm.

“You gonna make it?” he murmured.

Daryl looked at him sideways, nodded.

“You fall into that stove and catch fire, it’ll just be the last straw.”

Daryl snorted. “Might’s well just warm yerself by the blaze, then.”

“D..don’t be an asshole,” Rick growled, his teeth chattering.

Daryl knelt down shakily beside Rick and grabbed his arm. “C’mere,” the man croaked. Rick let Daryl pull him closer and enfold him in his blanket, and he slid his arms under Daryl’s so they could press their bare bodies together under their coverings.

“Yer cold as I am…”

“No shit. Want me to let go?”

“No…”

They held each other tightly and held each other up, feeling the warmth slowly seep back into their limbs, the shivering gradually subsiding. Rick’s fingers, no longer numb, became aware of the ridges of Daryl’s scars beneath them. He could feel Daryl’s cool fingers resting on his lower back. He let his awareness drift to all the places their bodies touched, and how Daryl’s body touched him; silky-smooth and soft, cool, hard and angular, warm and coarsely hairy. This was how Daryl brought him back to earth, back to life, back to himself, he thought—with the very flesh on his bones. With Daryl so close, so grounding, Rick could release the anger somehow, release the doubts and despair, and for a few moments, just feel safe. Just _be._

Daryl grunted. “Think my nuts are finally climbin’ back down outta my throat.”

He peeled away from Rick and sat back on his heels, then looked him up and down in the flickering light from the stove, squinting and making small sounds of displeasure in his throat. Rick looked down at himself, noticed for the first time that streams of drying blood streaked him from chest to thighs. Daryl reached out carefully, touching the wound on his breast, then took hold of his chin, turning his face to examine the small gash on his forehead, over his left eye. Daryl sighed, and Rick closed his eyes as his friend gently palpated the tender area, then licked at it a few times, as though he were a cat. “Still bleedin’ a little,” Daryl announced. “Should do somethin’ about that one.”

“This place has been ransacked pretty good…” Rick began.

“Naw, there’s always somethin’. I’ll go out and get a pan o’ snow to heat, and look in the garage. You check around in here.”

Rick nodded agreement and they both lurched back to their feet.

***

It would be so easy… or at least possible, once they’d found weapons again. A couple of assault rifles would be best. AR-50s. There would, no doubt, be dead soldiers around, as soon as they entered the urban area. Easy to grab a couple of weapons and slip back to that cabin under cover of darkness and set it ablaze with a can full of gas and some matches. Or maybe some Molotov cocktails. Then, when the motherfuckers ran outside with their hair on fire, he and Daryl could pick them off two at a time, each covering an opposite corner of the building.

Rick sat curled in the window seat, hidden behind the curtains, staring out into a dark yard, but all he could see was the blazing carnage in his mind’s eye. Of course, it wouldn’t get Daryl’s crossbow or their knives or all that deer meat back, but it would feel goddamn good to lay waste to those assholes. They didn’t deserve that place. After what they did… what they almost fucking did… They weren’t any better than the last bunch of bloodthirsty psychos he’d had to do in.

Rick shifted uncomfortably, but barely felt the pain in his body, consumed as he was with the pitched battle in his head.

A piece of wood in the stove gave a loud pop, and Rick started violently, whirling to stare blindly around the dark room. His sweaty fingers closed around the large kitchen knife next to him on the window seat, and he slowly lowered his feet to the floor. There was a movement in front of the hearth… and Daryl exhaled a moan.

Rick let out the breath he was holding, and realized just how hard his heart was hammering. He felt lightheaded. Looking down at the floor, he could just make out Daryl stretched out on his back, wearing several layers of borrowed flannels, Carhartts and a down vest. The man shifted a bit, moaned again and grunted. “Daryl?” Rick said softly.

No response, but for a soft snore.

Rick sighed and leaned back against the wall. Keeping himself wound so tight wasn’t helping the fact that he was sore all over; he felt as if he’d pulled every muscle in his body while straining and writhing with all his might just hours earlier to escape his bondage. He’d offered to take first watch, since he doubted he could sleep.

The snoring stopped and Daryl let out a groan that ended in a whimper.

The sky outside had lightened to indigo; no more time for sleeping anyway, Rick thought. Despite his revenge fantasies, he knew their best course of action was to put distance rapidly between themselves and the cabin, and strike out north for DC. They’d only been able to stagger about a mile down the road last night, and had stopped at the first small housing development they’d come to, desperate for shelter. He didn’t want to think about what could happen if the Seven Dwarfs decided to head down the hill at dawn and check on their victims, to find the ropes hanging empty.

Rick slid down to the floor, kneeling before the woodstove, and quickly smothered the fire, then turned to touch Daryl’s shoulder.

“Daryl, c’mon. It’s time we get goin’.”

***

Despite the soreness in his body, movement felt good—physically and mentally. Forward motion meant something. They had a destination. They were no longer waiting, hiding, biding their time. Ready or not, they were off to DC—and judging from the map in the gas station, they didn’t have far to go, Rick thought.

_You are here…_

“This is the route that Abraham mapped out,” Rick said, running his finger up the traces of I-95, Route 1, skirting larger cities and towns on county roads. “But somewhere here in the suburbs, they’d probably have to diverge. Figure out exactly where they’re going—where the safe zones are.”

“If there _are_ any,” Daryl murmured, leaning stiffly against an empty candy rack. “Ain’t seen no billboards yet.”

“There have to be. They could be anywhere—probably not right in the middle of DC, either.”

“It’s weird, man,” Daryl observed. “We haven’t seen anybody out here. Hardly no walkers, neither. Ya think they evacuated the whole place?”

“I know the Army did evacuate places…” Rick squinted down the road—nothing living or dead (save a few crows) was visible in any direction. “But if they evacuated early on, why aren’t we finding any food left behind? It’s like the whole area’s been systematically looted.”

“Fer the safe zone, maybe,” Daryl postulated.

Walking felt good, but it was slow progress. Who needs speed, when you don’t know where you’re going? Rick mused out loud, when Daryl complained. As usual it was difficult to find a vehicle that would start, or run once it did start. They made a couple attempts at pop-starting cars, with Rick pushing and Daryl in the driver’s seat, but so far the cars would not stay running after sitting idle so long.

So they walked. Slowly and stiffly and mostly silently. A pawn shop was noisy to break into, but yielded a like-new crossbow and some knives, and a pair of binoculars. An office building had some snacks and medicine squirreled away in desk drawers, and a water cooler. Where there were canoes and kayaks in yards, there was bound to be camping equipment in the house, and they gathered backpacks and some assorted gear, and found a couple of hidden handguns to boot.

Near nightfall, they climbed the stairs, slowly and stiffly, to a third-floor apartment over a bakery—one with north-facing windows and a long view. The building was eerily silent and still—just like the rest of town.

“Clear,” Daryl reported, after checking the back bedroom.

Rick sat down at the kitchen table by the window with a sigh. To the west, he could see the sun setting in an orange and violet glow. Daryl rattled through a few drawers and cabinets in the back rooms before coming to stand at the window himself, leaning on the sill.

“Lemme have those binocs,” he said, and Rick bent and rummaged in his backpack, then handed the binoculars to his friend.

Rick noticed that Daryl lifted them slowly to his eyes, and as he watched the man scanning the horizon, he was surprised to also notice, as Daryl’s shirt cuffs fell back, that his friend’s wrists were chafed very raw, the skin weeping.

How had he not noticed that before? Rick sat there blinking for a moment, remembering last night. How Daryl had knelt in front of his chair and gently cleaned and wrapped and taped Rick's bloodied wrists, and the gash on his head. How he’d tried to sponge some of the blood from Rick’s body with melted snow, and had dabbed disinfectant on his stab wounds and applied bandages as best he could.

Judging from the way Daryl had moved all day, and the fact that he could barely lift his arms, Rick also surmised that his back was in spasm. No wonder, Rick thought. He’d known Daryl was suffering more than he while they were bound; the man never complained, but Rick remembered the strain on Daryl’s face after having his broad shoulders pulled so tightly behind him for hours.

Rick felt a little sick to his stomach, realizing that he’d been so consumed with rage the night before that he hadn’t even thought to tend to his best friend.

“Hey,” he said softly to Daryl. “Your back pretty bad?”

Daryl lowered the binocs and glanced at him, gave a tiny shrug and a shake of his head. “’M ok.”

“Saw you take some Advil today. You want more?”

“Alright,” Daryl drawled softly, and Rick dug some more and came up with the pills, handing Daryl his water bottle too.

“Can you sit, Daryl?”

“Rather stand up.”

Rick nodded, stood up and came to him, took Daryl’s big right hand between his. He lifted Daryl’s arm for a closer look, and sucked a breath in between his teeth.

In the dying light, he washed and patted Daryl’s wrists dry, then picked up the gauze from the table and unwound a strip, cutting it with his new knife. “Y’know,” he said quietly, looking up at Daryl from the chair where he sat, “I never heard you beg like that before.”

Daryl blinked down at him, face expressionless. “Wouldn’ta bothered,” he finally said, “’Cept those guys weren’t much different than me ‘n you.”

Rick’s eyebrows shot up in the air. “You serious? That asshole was gonna gut us like a coupla trout!”

That little shrug again. “Maybe. Maybe not. An’ yeah, _he_ was an asshole. Rest a them guys weren’t so bad. You heard ‘em. If Black Hat wasn’t there, they mighta let us go.”

Rick scowled, and finished taping one wrist. “Well, they didn’t, did they? Fuckers left us there to get eaten alive. If I could’ve killed ‘em, I would’ve.”

He taped the other wrist in silence.

***

Rick sat watch most of the night, wrapped in a blanket by the kitchen window, which was open to catch any sounds from below. He let Daryl sleep, knowing he probably wouldn’t be able to regardless. Nightmares seemed to be taking over his mind again, sleeping or waking, and he couldn’t stop reliving their ordeal on the knoll, going over each detail obsessively, turning the experience over and over in his mind. Where had he gone wrong this time? What could he have done differently? How would he make sure it never happened again? What would he do if he met those people again in a dark alley? If… What if… When his mind tired of the knoll, it turned to Terminus… or the prison… or Grady Memorial… or his last day with his children… until he’d worked himself into a heart-pounding, nauseated, trembling, sweaty wreck.

On the road with everyone else, somehow he’d managed to hold himself together. He was a leader, a father, and it was his lot to be responsible and steadfast and strong no matter what happened. He was in control, at least to all appearances. He shoved the trauma to the back of his mind, went numb and soldiered on. _Rest in peace—now get up and go to war…_

In the cabin, alone with Daryl, there was no more need to maintain a façade. He’d lost all control at first, allowing his anger and grief free reign. He felt safe with Daryl—reckoned Daryl wouldn’t leave him, no matter how crazy he got—and when his friend wrestled him into submission, slapped him, half-choked him, tied him up and cursed at him, it was a relief, in a sick sort of way. The struggle and punishment seemed to purge him, calm his demons, and he always fell into a deep and dreamless sleep afterward.

Sex had much the same effect, he mused, but with the bonus of finding himself pleasantly satiated rather than just bruised and exhausted. And swapping fisticuffs for fucking sure had changed Daryl’s mood.

Lying together warm and quiet post-orgasm, Daryl’s arms and legs entangled with his, Rick—for a few moments at least—could let it all go.

That lifeline had been an amazing surprise. Perhaps it shouldn’t have been—after all, Lori had once been able to give him that gift. He didn’t realize how much he missed it, until he found it again with Daryl, of all people… And while Lori had looked to him for protection and provision—had held so many expectations of him—Daryl made no such demands, no judgments. He was simply there, by his side, strong and silent and steady.

He looked down at Daryl lying on the floor, on a twin mattress Rick had dragged into the kitchen for him because he refused to sleep alone in the other room. Moonlight slanted in, falling in a blade across Daryl’s prone body, swathed in blankets.

Two cats down in the alley growled and cried and tussled and fucked, Daryl grumbled and sighed in his sleep, and Rick felt the soft animal of his body come alive. That’s all he and Daryl really were, he thought—just a couple of dirty, abandoned, feral tomcats, stalking and sparring and screwing and trying to survive together.

With a last glance outside, Rick moved silently from the chair down to the floor, crawling over to the mattress. He lifted the blankets and slid underneath, and Daryl’s arms came around him, pulling him to lie half atop the man. Daryl felt warm and solid and Rick could smell his body and the faint hint of cigarette smoke that lingered in his hair and shirt. It brought Rick crashing back to here and now.

“Hey,” Daryl said softly.

Rick lowered his head and kissed Daryl’s neck, hearing his friend sigh, feeling a couple of bristly beard hairs prick at his lips. “Need you,” he murmured.

“Ain’t good for much, Rick.”

“That’s ok. I got it,” Rick replied, reaching to unfasten his belt and jeans. He slid them down to his shins, then undid Daryl’s belt with one hand, while Daryl pulled down his own fly. Together, they pushed Daryl’s pants down onto his thighs.

Holding his weight over Daryl on one elbow and his knees, Rick snaked a hand between their hips and grasped both their half-hard cocks together in his fist, squeezing.

Daryl hummed deep in his throat, and Rick could feel fingers gently clutch at his ass, tangle in his hair. He covered Daryl’s mouth with his own and thrust his tongue into its silky depths, as he began to stroke them together. His dry hand felt clumsy, and the rhythm of his undulating hips was a bit off, but Daryl came to the rescue by reaching into his pocket and pulling out a little tube of K-Y Jelly and pressing it into Rick’s chest until he noticed.

“Gimme some,” Rick said, and a moment later, Daryl’s fingers were rubbing a dollop of the lube into Rick’s handful of dicks, and Rick took it from there.

It took him mere moments to come, his face buried in Daryl’s hair, punched-out gasps escaping his lips, and he stroked himself through the orgasm until Daryl’s cock began to pulse, too, and he felt his friend shudder and seize silently beneath him.

Rick finally let go and slid down beside Daryl, who lifted the blankets with one hand and pulled Rick’s dripping fingers out with the other.

“Hungry?” Rick teased, and Daryl grunted, bringing Rick’s slippery index finger to his lips.

Daryl’s tongue stroked and cleaned each of his fingers, and Rick sighed, lay contented and emptied against Daryl’s side, quiet and warm, his day falling away softly as he slowly drifted to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gah... wanted to add more to this but it's long enough to post now, so I shall. Not much action here, but a lull and a look at Rick's POV seemed necessary. Hope you enjoy - comments please! Y'all are keeping me going. Hope you enjoyed the premier lastnight!


	8. Love and Hate

_You think they’re lookin’ for us, Daryl? Sending out search teams, maybe?_

_Maybe… prob’ly. Or maybe they’re leavin’ us clues. I been lookin.’_

_What kind of clues could they leave without attractin’ the wrong people?_

_They’re smart, they’d think of somethin.’ Long as we’re smart enough to figger it out… I mean, after Terminus, they ain’t gonna just put up a sign sayin’ ‘This way to the safe zone…”_

_***_

_What if there is no safe zone, Daryl? I mean, what if they finally figured that out, and had to keep moving?_

_They would’a waited for us. They wouldn’t just keep goin’. My note said ‘Meet you in DC.’_

_That was a long time ago. They could’ve been here a long time already and reckoned we weren’t coming. They might think we’re dead._

_Nah, they wouldn’t jus’ give up… really only been a month or so._

_Or what if there is a safe zone, but they won’t let us in? I mean, if the President and all the politicians are in it…_

_Hate to say it, Rick…_

_Say what?_

_More ‘n likely by now, somebody’s killed ‘em all and took the place over fer themselves. President’s either dead, or he’s fightin’ every day to survive—just like us._

_So you’re sayin… no safe zone…_

_Don’t mean our people ain’t here waitin.’ Don’t mean they ain’t safe._

_***_

_When we find them… They’re gonna ask us what happened. Why we left. They’re probably gonna be pissed. They’re gonna want answers. Carl, he… what do I tell him? What do we say?_

_We say you were sick. You had a fever. I was worried you’d turn. You were actin’ strange, so I wanted ta get you away. Make sure ever’body was safe. It ain’t quite a lie._

_Think Carl will believe it… think anyone will?_

_You got a better idea? Best to just stick with the truth… or the closest thing to it._

_***_

_What if they don’t want us back, Daryl? I mean, what if Carl’s not ready to see me?_

_That’s bullshit. Why the hell would you say that?_

_What if they know what happened? Carl would have told them what he saw. What if they figured it out?_

_They cain’t turn you away…_

_What the hell would I do? Charge in with guns blazin’?_

_Naw… stop now. They turn you away, they turn me away too. I’m ain’t just gonna leave you. And I ain’t gonna hurt nobody. We’d figger somethin’ out. Work it out, y’know? ‘Sides, prob’ly more likely they think I’M the one did somethin’ crazy. Carl saw me knock your ass out._

_Shit…_

_You gonna let anybody just turn ME away, Rick?_

_Of course not. We’re in this together._

_***_

_Daryl?_

_Hmmph?_

_What if I’m not ready to see THEM again?_

_Hey... there goes a squirrel..._

***

Four days went by and a warm spell set in, melting what was left of the wet snow and ice, and making travel easier. Daryl reckoned it was maybe December now, but he couldn’t be sure. Days still seemed to be getting shorter. Today they had decided to head east, across I-95, closer to the Potomac River. Daryl glanced over at Rick, sauntering along beside him, and noted the set of his jaw, the lines between his brows. He was scowling again, fighting the Governor, or hacking up cannibals, or flinging a woman off a bridge—or battling robots in outer space, for all Daryl knew. So often lately, Rick was close enough to grab, but his mind was orbiting Mars.

Rick might not admit it, but Daryl knew the man was afraid—losing his religion. The closer they got to finding sanctuary, the slower Rick moved. The closer they got to their people, the more he fretted. The nearer he approached his children, the less he spoke their names.

Dark circles hung below Rick’s eyes, revealing the fact that he was barely sleeping at night. When he did sleep, his incoherent mumbling and eventual yelling brought Daryl to his side to assure him that they weren’t under siege. But it wasn’t just thugs and monsters that haunted him—it was what Rick had done (or nearly done), what he was becoming, and whether he or his people could live with that, Daryl reckoned. It was what he might do next, now that _he_ was the monster. And only he and Daryl knew it.

About midday, the two men reached what must have once been a golf course, and decided to skirt the edge of it, staying in the trees on the wild side and away from the fancy houses with their dark windows on the uphill slope. They trod a muddy path, which seemed to be well-used; in fact, Daryl suddenly stopped and pointed to the ground, and there they were—unmistakably fresh tracks, from two small pairs of rubber boots.

Rick knelt down and examined the tracks, Daryl crouching beside him.

“ _Kids?”_ Rick muttered, amazed.

“Looks like it. Ran by not an hour or so ago, I’d say.”

Rick stood up, peering intently up the path into the brush, frowning.

“We could maybe follow ‘em back to their parents if we’re careful,” Daryl suggested. “Maybe they’re part of a group using this area. Maybe they could tell us about our people.”

Rick nodded, and suddenly forged ahead.

“Rick, hold up…” Daryl started, but Rick was off, stalking swiftly up the trail, following the small footprints like a bloodhound. Daryl kept up, cursing under his breath, swinging his crossbow up just in case and using it to keep branches from slapping him in the face.

Finally Rick stopped short, holding a hand up against Daryl’s advancing chest, and Daryl halted and saw it too—the incongruous, shiny green of a rubber raincoat. Daryl’s eyes quickly made out the shapes of two blonde children, perhaps 10 and 12, down in a shallow ravine cut by a small, noisy brook that tumbled under a footbridge that they were about to cross. The kids had fishing poles and nets and were obviously having some success, when they were interrupted by Rick’s greeting.

“Hi there,” Rick called down to them, striding out into view, holding a hand out in an appeasing gesture. “We’re not going to hurt you. Can we talk to you?”

As Daryl expected, the kids’ eyes widened in terror; dropping their fishing poles, they fled into the woods, calling out for help.

Rick sprang after them, sliding down the streambank and splashing across the brook, then scrambling up through the rhododendrons on the other side with Daryl in pursuit, urging him to stop, to at least hang back. The kids obviously knew these woods well, squeezing through bushes and brambles like hounded rabbits, and Rick leapt back up on the trail to try to head them off. Daryl was closing the distance behind him, still hampered a bit by his healing leg, when a blur flew across the trail ahead of him and tackled Rick to the ground.

Daryl had to grab a tree to halt himself, nearly tripping over the tangle of flailing arms and legs on the gravel path in front of him. He could make out dirty blonde hair and a scruffy beard, a buffalo plaid shirt, the glint of a knife arcing through the air; lightning fast, he dove forward and grabbed the man’s arm, wrenching it smoothly behind his back and lifting the attacker to his feet.

“Whoa, now!” he called out.

Rick leapt up snarling in front of him; before Daryl could even open his mouth to intervene, there was a loud pop, and the man stiffened and fell back in his arms. A child’s voice behind him shrieked “Daddy!” and Rick stood panting, clutching his pistol, while a stunned Daryl slowly lowered the young father to the ground.

Daryl couldn’t speak for a moment. “Rick, I _had_ him,” he finally murmured, kneeling by the man’s bleeding body. “He was just…”

“Protectin’ his kids…” Rick finished. Daryl looked up at his friend’s face, to see him staring blankly up the trail. Following his gaze, Daryl saw the children standing not thirty feet away, their mouths open.

The boy recovered first, his freckled face twisting with hatred as he pulled a small handgun from his coat pocket and lifted it to point at Rick. “Run, Skye,” he growled at his little sister, who didn’t budge. The boy screwed one eye shut and sighted down the short barrel with the other. “You better _run,_ too,” he ground out.

Daryl had a gut feeling the gun would not be loaded, but nevertheless he glanced back at Rick for some clue as to his next move. Rick had lowered his gun and was just standing there, arms down, face gone pale.

“Shit…” Daryl breathed, and the boy’s gun emitted a loud “click.” Then another, and another, and there were voices calling from further up the trail, male and female. A shuffling sound approached from the left as well, and everyone but Rick stopped and stared into the woods. Sure enough, two walkers ambled toward them, drawn by the noise.

“Daniel,” the girl pled, tugging on the boy’s sleeve.

“Ain’t gonna just leave him here,” the boy replied, his voice breaking. Daryl saw the tears streaking down the boy’s face and watched him swipe at them with the back of his shaking hand, still holding the gun.

He stood up, raised the crossbow, and strode a few feet toward the walkers, taking them both out neatly. Deciding not to waste time retrieving the arrows, he returned to the path, grabbed Rick by the arm, and looked back at the children. “Git back to yer people,” he urged.

***

They jogged back the way they came, and kept jogging—through a posh neighborhood, another patch of woods, across the freeway, and into an urban wasteland of industrial parks. They dodged past warehouses and jogged through parking lots, skirting fences, seeing only a handful of walkers and a pack of stray dogs. Dark clouds had gathered overhead and the dim sun hung low in the sky. Daryl tapped Rick’s shoulder and pointed to a couple of semi-trucks parked nearby, just as the first big drops of cold rain began to fall.

Daryl jumped up on the running board of a big, blue Peterbilt with a sleeper cab and banged on the window. Silence. A jerk on the door handle actually opened the door, to his surprise, and he jumped down and gestured to Rick, who clambered in and fell into the passenger seat.

Daryl climbed in after him and closed and locked the door. Eyes adjusting slowly to the low light, he slipped back into the sleeper, taking in the bed with a red, white and blue quilt, rows of storage cupboards above and below. The blank eye of a TV shone from one wall, and below, a small refrigerator. He leaned his crossbow in the corner and rummaged a bit, finding some old cookies, crackers, couple tins of sardines and Pepsi in the mini-fridge.

He took the sardines and sat down in the driver’s seat, feeling around with his free hand to find the lever that would slide it back away from the steering wheel. He offered a can to Rick, but the man wouldn’t look at him. He just sat there, curled up in the seat, eyes squeezed shut and pinching the bridge of his nose.

A tear trickled down Rick’s cheek, catching in his beard, and Daryl felt something inside him come unglued.

“What the fuck you cryin’ about?” Daryl snapped.

Rick’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t answer; didn’t look at Daryl.

“I said _stop it,”_ Daryl growled, his voice rising. “You think you got a reason to cry? Them kids just got chased through the woods by a couple of dirty, fuckin’ armed hobos, then watched one of ‘em shoot their dad in the head. Prob’ly ain’t got a mama left either. Kid was about to wet his pants tryin’ to protect his little sister next. And _you’re_ cryin’!”

“Shutup!” Rick hollered.

“No, I ain’t gonna shutup. Bout time I said somethin’! You’re survivin’ Rick—you’re doin’ it. You wanta find our people and find your kids and do right by ‘em, you said. But you can’t clean out everyone else along the way! What the fuck’s the _matter_ with you anymore? What happened to you, man?”

“How the hell can you ask that? It’s all happened to you, too!” Rick cried, finally lifting his head.

Daryl tossed the sardine can onto the dashboard, lurched out of the driver’s seat with a roar of frustration and retreated to the sleeper, flinging himself onto the bed. His gut churned, sick with remorse for what they’d done to those children, and sick with fear for what it was doing to Rick.

Up in the cab, Rick let out a soft keening sound, and Daryl wanted so awfully to grab him, shake him, make him stop.

“I can’t come back, Daryl,” Rick moaned. “I can’t. Used to think I could… we all could… but I was wrong. M…maybe I could’ve once… but not anymore.”

“So you just gonna let the devil have yer soul now? Is that it?” Daryl hollered.

Rick went quiet for a moment. “Feels like he’s already got it, Daryl. I can’t get it back. I can’t stop thinking… my head’s full of awful shit.”

“So, what—you think yer the only one with PTSD?”

“I couldn’t help killing that guy. I couldn’t help it!”

“Bullshit!”

Several loud crashes ensued, and Daryl looked up to see Rick kicking the dashboard and the door panel with all his might, smashing plastic and pleather with his boot heels. He jumped out of the seat, then, and turned around to face Daryl on the bed. Daryl sat up, staring up at Rick’s silhouette against the windshield. Rain began to pour down in earnest, pounding on the truck’s metal roof, streaming down the windows.

“You don’t get it! I’m completely and totally fucked up! You shoulda let me kill myself, let me die back there! If we find our people I’m just gonna hurt somebody. What if I try to kill my own kids again?!”

“Why the fuck would you do that, Rick? You just need time, man! Time to heal, to start again, to take a fuckin’ breath!”

“If I get into the safe zone, it won’t be safe anymore. All those people…” Rick panted, “…all those people we thought were crazy… The Governor… Gareth… those biker assholes you hooked up with… I ain’t no different anymore. I’m them!”

“That ain’t true!”

“It _is_ true! The things in my head… _fuckin’ evil!_ ” Rick grabbed his skull, then shakily ran his hand through his hair and took a step toward Daryl, eyes blazing. Daryl stood up slowly to face him, a cold chill traveling up his spine.

“D’you know what occurred to me last night, watching you sleep?” Rick murmured low and menacingly, tilting his head just a little to look hard up into Daryl’s eyes. His voice was barely audible above the pounding rain. “You’re the only person who knows what really happened with my kids by the brook—what I was really gonna do. If I really want a second chance—if I never want a soul to find out—then I should kill you. I could blame you for knocking me out and hauling me off. Carl saw you hit me. I could tell them all you got bit and died. No one would ever know the truth.”

Daryl pulled his lip between his teeth, his hand sliding surreptitiously to his knife sheath. He heard Rick’s words, his body reacting, but his mind could hardly process what his friend was saying to him. It was as if he were talking to someone else. Someone like Gareth.

“I thought about whether I’d slit your throat, or put a precious bullet in your brain. Somethin’ quick—wouldn’t wanta hurt you any. Then, crazy thing, I got a fuckin’ hard-on.”

The two men stood frozen, eyes locked, bodies trembling with the tension that filled the tiny space until there seemed to be no oxygen left. Rick remained in the middle of the cab, blocking Daryl’s only exit.

“You didn’t do it,” Daryl murmured. “And you wouldn’t. I know you.”

Rick’s jaw clenched, along with his fists. “You think you do, but you don’t! You don’t get it!” he hollered. He doubled over as if in pain, grabbing his knees, breathing hard, then righted himself again. “If you were smart,” he moaned, voice breaking, “you’d kill me before I kill somebody else—before I kill _you_!”

“You don’t need killin.’ You need help!”

“Nothin’s gonna help me now but a bullet!” Rick cried, and Daryl could see the shimmer of a tear on his cheek again.

“Man, stop! I know you don’t want this!”

Rick jumped at him, shoving at his chest and knocking him back onto the bed. “You don’t know what I want! Stop thinkin’ you do!”

“Get yer hands off me!” Daryl growled, bouncing back up, but Rick shoved him down again. Daryl came up the next time with fists cocked and ready to go.

“Hit me!” Rick bellowed into his face. “C’mon Daryl, don’t be a pussy. Hit me!”

Daryl suddenly flashed back to one of Merle’s benders, his brother trying to bait him into a fight. It was always for one of two reasons, one of which involved Merle acting out, feeling sorry for himself and guilty about something atrocious he’d done.

“Don’t wanna hit you!” Daryl hollered back. “So don’t make me!”

“HIT ME!” Rick screamed, and Daryl grabbed him by the shirt collar and spun him around, flinging him down onto the bed.

“Enough!”

Rick lifted himself to his knees, panting. “If you won’t hit me, then _fuck_ me…” he demanded.

_“What?”_

“You heard me. Fuck me. Up the ass. Right now.”

“No!”

Rick knee-walked to the edge of the bed and grabbed onto Daryl’s shirt before he could back up, pulling him close. “I know you’re hard,” he ground out between his teeth, his face two inches from Daryl’s. “I can see it. You want it. You always want it, ‘cause you’re a fuckin’ whore. So do it! Fuck me! FUCK ME! Make it hurt! NOW!”

“Fer fuck’s sake, Rick!”

“YOU MOTHERFUCKING COCKSUCKING WHORE JUST DO IT!” Rick screamed, spittle flying in Daryl’s face, and he let go of Daryl’s shirt and began to yank on his own belt and button and fly.

At that point, Daryl’s remaining tether snapped.

He grabbed Rick in a blind rage and manhandled him down to the bed as if he were a small child, flipping him and bending him over the edge of the mattress, twisting an arm behind his back, and then, with his free hand, grabbing Rick’s undone jeans and tearing them down to the man’s knees with one sharp yank.

“You want me to hurt ya?!” he cried. “YOU WIN, ASSHOLE! I’ll hurt ya! I’ll hurt ya old school! Give you something to cry about after all!”

With one knee, he pinned Rick’s left thigh to the side of the mattress while he unbuckled his own belt, then jerked it free from the belt loops with a loud swish. Rick’s pale ass practically gleamed in the dimness of the cab; Daryl had no trouble seeing his target. He doubled up the belt in his fist, raising his arm, and taking a step back, brought it down across Rick’s tender flesh with a mighty slap.

It obviously wasn’t what Rick was expecting, and the blow caused him to startle and cry out. Daryl landed the belt again, and again, holding Rick down, barely aware of anything else but the arc of each swing, the energy leaving his arm. He was yelling something at Rick, something about what he deserved, and Rick’s face was buried in the quilt, his body heaving and trembling, Daryl’s fingers digging into his wrist as he bore down.

He had no idea how long he carried on, but his brain finally registered Rick’s hoarse cries of “Enough! Enough, Daryl! Stop! Ah, Christ, stop!” He let go of Rick and staggered back, dazed, dropping the belt to the floor. It was nearly dark—too dark to see the damage he’d done—and rain continued to wash down the windows of the truck.

He turned and crawled into the front passenger seat, curling into a fetal position, panting and shaking. Hating Rick. Hating his best friend for finally bringing out the worst in him. For turning him into his old man. The one person he never wanted to emulate.

He could hear Rick groaning and crawling into the bed. Rick might come after him. _Who gives a shit—bring it on. Kill me. I don’t fuckin’ care anymore._

But he did care. And he didn’t want to hate Rick. If he hated him, then Rick won—no, scratch that, the _world_ won. The fucked up, ass-backwards, worm-eaten, rot-filled world that was killing Rick and destroying their friendship—the last good thing on earth that Daryl could cling to. It felt, now, as if even that was crumbling to ruin.

As if to echo his thoughts, a thump on the door gave him a start—and a glance out the window revealed that their fight had attracted some unwanted attention.

“Fuckin’ undead pricks,” he growled. A walker in a cop’s uniform was banging loosely on the door, and four to six more appeared to be right behind. Hard to say in the rain and twilight darkness. Daryl slid down in the seat, out of sight, and set to chewing viciously at a thumbnail; but the banging and knocking continued to escalate, and he knew it would make for a very long night.

Killing walkers might feel pretty good right now, he decided. So he got out his long hunting knife and threw on his coat, pounded a few times on the passenger side window, then proceeded to climb quietly out the driver’s side door and into the rainy night.

The first two stragglers he snuck up on were easy; the third had a hard skull and was pretty energetic, and by that time they’d all noticed him and begun to advance on him. He had to shove one away hard and wipe the wet hair from his eyes, then turn and grab another and push it at the first, in order to turn and kill a third one behind him—but someone had already beaten him to it. Just as he spun, Rick’s voice called out “With you!” from his left flank. Together, they dispatched the last two walkers perfunctorily, wiped the rank blood off in the rain, and clambered back into the shelter of the truck.

The two men peeled off their dripping coats, shook water from their hair, and stood toe to toe in the middle of the truck again.

_With you._ That’s what Rick had said.

“You _with me_ or ain’t you?” Daryl asked softly.

He could barely make out Rick’s nod. “I am. You know I am.”

“I don’ know nothin’ anymore,” Daryl whispered. “You said so yourself…”

Daryl shoved his hands into his pockets, and the new jeans felt all wrong, and his favorite pocket-knife was lost forever, and it was all just too much. He screwed his eyes shut against the tears, but they came nevertheless, and he choked out a tiny sob. He felt so utterly adrift.

Rick grabbed Daryl’s forearms and gently tugged his hands from his pockets, then held Daryl’s left hand in his own. Rick’s thumb gently circled the new scar on the fleshy part of Daryl’s hand—the round burn mark he’d inflicted on himself alone by the barn a little over a month ago. Then he traced the others, below his thumb, on the side of his wrist. Next, his fingers slid up Daryl’s sleeve, pushing it back to find and caress the old, thin scars inside his forearm. The ones he’d given himself in a foster home. In a motel room. In the bathroom, after his mama died.

“This is how you do it,” Rick murmured. “With blades. With cigarettes. I get it now. See, Daryl… _you’re_ how _I_ do it.”

Daryl blinked at him. He did see.

Rick sighed, squeezed Daryl’s hand, and let it go. “I’ll sit first watch,” he offered.

They sat silently in the growing darkness and ate sardines, washed them down with warm Pepsi, then Daryl shucked his boots off, climbed out of the driver’s seat and headed for the bed.

***

Daryl woke some time later, feeling the bed move, and for a moment he was disoriented. Was he back in the cabin? No it was cold, and there was no big window with its panorama of stars and treetops. A warm hand suddenly landed on his shoulder, and he startled, eyes popping open, unseeing in the dark.

“If yer gonna kill me,” he blurted, “least don’t wake me up first.”

Rick let out a long breath behind him. “I’m sorry,” he said mournfully, pressing his forehead into Daryl’s back.

Daryl frowned. “Fer what? Wakin’ me up first?”

Rick’s hand traveled down Daryl’s body, stopping to squeeze his thigh.

“My turn on watch?”

“Shut-up a minute,” Rick whispered. He pulled on Daryl’s shoulder, encouraging him to roll over, so Daryl did so and sat up, scooting backward against the pillows, rubbing at his eyes.

Rick followed, climbing Daryl’s body like a tree, throwing a knee across Daryl’s thighs, taking Daryl’s face in his hands and kissing him with a hard insistence, grinding his hips down into Daryl’s lap.

“What the fuck you doin’?” Daryl mumbled, breaking away for a breath. Rick’s late night onslaughts didn’t surprise Daryl anymore, but after the events of the day, he was still feeling more like beating Rick than fucking him. Even if his dick did not agree.

Rick pressed his forehead against Daryl’s. “I need you,” he murmured. “I’m sorry, Daryl. Sorry for everythang.” His thumbs stroked Daryl’s cheeks, hands still cupping his face. “I’m such an asshole. Please… please don’t give up on me.”

“Ain’t goin’ anywhere…”

“So… we ok?” Rick asked plaintively.

Daryl couldn’t say no to him. “Yeah,” he said softly, placing his hands on Rick’s waist. “Yeah, we’re ok.”

Rick hugged him tight, kissing his neck, his jaw, and Daryl put his arms around his friend.

“Yer ass hurt?” he asked.

Daryl could feel Rick smile against his throat. “Like I sat on a damn beehive. But y’know somethin’… when you were whippin’ me… I got a huge boner.”

“That’s ‘cause yer a fuckin’ psycho,” Daryl muttered. “Ain’t gonna whoop your ass again tonight, don’t care how hard ya beg.”

Rick was quiet for a moment, then asked softly, “Will you fuck me?”

Daryl’s half-hard cock suddenly surged with blood, causing him to cringe and make a quick adjustment in his jeans. He cleared his throat, disconcerted at his own reaction. “My dick’s for makin’ love, Rick, not war.”

Rick pulled back a little and Daryl could just make out his eyes gleaming in the dark. “Ain’t asking you t’ hurt me. It don’t really hurt, does it? I just… I just wanta try it. And I want…” Daryl suddenly felt Rick’s fingers searching for and finding his hard-on, tracing its outline. “… I want to make you happy. After everything.”

Daryl couldn’t say no… and he didn’t say yes, but it hardly mattered. Rick always got what he wanted, and luckily, when they were going at it, what Rick wanted was pretty often what Daryl wanted. Daryl closed his eyes and let his head fall back as Rick opened his jeans, pulled his dick out and proceeded to suck on him with a vengeance. He bit his lip, fisting Rick’s curls, trying not to cry out with the pleasure that was suddenly and blessedly flooding his body.

Rick stopped to strip his clothes off, pull Daryl’s jeans away, then he was back, straddling Daryl’s lap again, kissing him greedily. Daryl reached between them to grab hold of Rick’s cock, stroke a thumb over the slippery head, and Rick moaned loudly, his body already trembling with need and excitement.

“Whatta ya need me to do, Rick?” Daryl breathed in the man’s ear. “Want me to lay you down?”

“No… no I got this… you just stay there… I uh… I… ah…” Rick drowned his words in Daryl’s mouth, leaning forward to kiss him again, and they spent some long moments in tongue-play, holding each other’s cocks, Daryl feeling Rick’s hips stutter and rock as he knelt over Daryl’s lap and thrusted through his hand. Rick’s left hand, wrapped around Daryl’s cock, was slick with lube, and it finally occurred to Daryl (when he reached to gingerly caress Rick’s sore backside), what his right hand was up to.

The thought of Rick stuffing his own fingers up his ass nearly made Daryl cream himself. “Jesus fuck Rick,” Daryl panted. “Oh fuck… you fuckin’ yourself without me?”

“Ohhh God,” Rick moaned. “I want you. I want you, Daryl.”

“C’mon then, darlin’,” Daryl urged, unable to wait any longer. “Take what you want from me.”

Rick surged forward and speared himself on Daryl’s cock, corkscrewing down, his fingers digging into Daryl’s shoulders, wrapped hard around the base of Daryl’s penis. They both groaned in unison as Rick finally impaled himself completely, pressing their unwashed, sweating bodies flush together until Daryl cradled Rick in his lap like a child, Rick’s arms and legs wrapped around him.

Daryl held his friend still for a moment, allowing Rick’s muscular insides to flutter and unclench and adjust, and a picture flashed through his mind of the man who’d once given him that same consideration. A friend of Merle’s it was—the guy who’d first deflowered him at sixteen. He’d never imagined, with that guy’s dick up his ass, that it would be nearly 30 years before he’d choose to be the one on top. And that of all people, he’d be on top of Rick. Even if Rick was, technically, on top of him at the moment…

***

Afterward, they stayed locked together, rocking slowly, combing fingers through each other’s hair, nuzzling each other’s necks. With the possible exception of the day Merle died, Daryl could not recall ever feeling so much love and hate for the same person in one day. He flicked his tongue out to lick at the pulse in Rick’s neck, then opened his mouth wide to bite down on his throat, suckle gently. He thought about what Rick had done to Joe—such an intimate act. An act of love become an act of hate.

“Daryl?” Rick whispered, and his shiver ran through both of them.

“Yeah, baby?”

“I’m scared.”

“I know. Me, too. But I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

“We good? We in this together?”

“Yeah, Rick. We’re in this together.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your patience! This chapter was cathartic for me - I've been wanting to give Rick a spanking for a couple seasons now! This got pretty dark, but don't worry, things are about to change again. I love to hear your comments - you still with me? Good! Please enjoy.


	9. Watched

Daryl’s eyes fluttered open, and he stared at the blue vinyl ceiling for a moment, slowly gaining awareness of his surroundings. The inside of the truck glowed with early morning sunshine; the storm had passed, and through the rain-spattered windshield, over the flat roofs of the warehouses, he could see white clouds floating in a blue sky. Starlings chattered and whistled from the wires overhead.

His nose was cold, the air chilly, but the warmth of two bodies beneath the quilt felt heavenly. He reached a hand across his chest and laced his fingers into dirty curls; he could feel Rick’s bristly face pressed against his bare arm. For the first time since leaving the cabin, they’d fallen asleep naked together, he realized. No one on watch. The cab of the truck smelled ripe with sex.

Daryl sighed. He’d been too overwhelmed and exhausted last night to care about precautions. Yesterday had gone from bad to worse to crazy like shit through a tin horn—then, Rick had fallen dead asleep in his arms after tearing away the last remnants of his tattered virginity. Not even a _thank you ma’am_.

Of course, Rick had no idea, and what was he expecting anyway? A speech? A prize? A fuckin’ cake? Daryl had already told Rick about his hustling and whoring, so why would Rick even believe that Daryl had never been inside a man before? And hell, he’d screwed a couple girls in high school, so it wasn’t like he was _really_ a virgin. If he was going to tell himself the truth, it was that he was really just a pathetic, 40-something, closet queer who was still somehow saving his dick for a real relationship that wasn’t ever going to happen.

Unless it was happening now.

Daryl rubbed a hand over his face, trying to stifle a snort. With all the fucked-up, white-knuckle things that had gone down yesterday—from watching Rick’s latest murder up close, to watching Rick flip out, to tanning Rick’s hide while possessed by the raging spirit of Will Dixon—it was pretty damn funny that Daryl would wake up thinking about his lost cherry.

_Be even funnier if it wasn’t so fuckin’ sad._

If only they were still at the cabin, he thought with a pang. Things were good there. Things made sense. Rick seemed to be getting better. Aside from the rest of their family, they had everything they needed, and more. Much more. He closed his eyes, remembering the way he’d felt lying tangled with Rick in the Love Loft. The bright blue eyes gazing into his, as Rick made love to him. _Made love._

_You’re everything to me,_ Rick had said that night. Daryl wanted to believe it.

Though maybe it wasn’t enough. He remembered with a chill Rick’s words from last night… _if I never want a soul to find out—then I should kill you._ Then, Rick straight up admitted that he was using Daryl like Daryl had used knives and razor blades and lit cigarettes—to feel a little more control. A little less heartache.

It was obvious that Rick wanted and needed Daryl, but that desire and need felt increasingly desperate anymore. Daryl knew deep down that Rick loved him, with the certainty that he loved all his people. But was that the kind of love he wanted? Did Rick love him like Daryl had loved his crossbow, or his favorite pocket-knife—as a tool to wield at will? Could Rick love him any differently if the man wasn’t so crazy with anger and fear and grief?

Another pang constricted his gut when he remembered Nick and Tony. It was almost as if he’d left them behind to die. He’d never be able to learn their secrets now…

Rick stirred beside him, groaning and stretching, and raising himself on an elbow. Daryl watched the man rub his chin and stare out the window for a moment, then turn his blue eyes upward, rolling over to lie half on top of Daryl’s body and gaze up at Daryl through his lashes.

“Mornin’, sexy,” Rick purred.

Daryl couldn’t muster a smile, but tried to keep his voice light. “Mornin’, Squatch.”

Rick reached under the quilt and found Daryl’s cock, half-hard from thinking about their lovemaking, and gave Daryl a crooked little smile and a squeeze.

“Ain’t you had enuffa that?” Daryl said dryly.

Rick pulled the coverlet back to look at his prize, his smile widening, his eyes dreamy. “You’d think, after having it so far up my ass last night,” he murmured. Daryl’s cock burgeoned and twitched, and Rick tightened his grip, turned his sleepy smile back up to Daryl again. “You spanked me so hard, then banged me so good,” Rick breathed. “My ass is sore in every way possible.”

Daryl let out an inadvertent groan, his cock now at full attention. How did Rick always do this to him?

“So sore,” Rick continued. “Gonna keep reminding me of you all day, and the way you… ohhh…” Rick closed his eyes and bucked his hips a little under the covers, looking like sex itself.

“Fuck, Rick,” Daryl muttered, staring. Rick chuckled and stroked his hard-on, whisper light, teasing, and pulled his arm away when Daryl tried to grab at him.

“Gonna make me want you all over again,” Rick said, with mock consternation. “You might notice me bendin’ over a little more than usual today….” Daryl’s dick was drooling heavily now, and Rick rubbed his thumb in the slick liquid and smeared it around the head. “Mmm, this big dick… it might hurt me, though. You might need to cool me a little. Give me something soothing… wet… soft…”

Rick’s pink lips parted, and he lowered his head to dart his tongue into Daryl’s navel, swirling it around.

“Ah, Christ… when’d you get so nasty?”

“After you lick me… finger me… I’ll be beggin’ for you. Want you to jam me full of cock again, Daryl.”

“God, _yes_ ,” he groaned, arching under Rick and pushing his swollen member through Rick’s tight hand, looking him right in the blazing blue eyes.

“Want these balls slapping my sore little ass. Want you finding that magic spot again… ah fuck, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven last night. Open your legs.”

Daryl obeyed, because that’s what he always did, spreading for Rick, and Rick took two slippery fingers from around Daryl’s cock and pushed them into Daryl’s body slowly but steadily, tearing another groan from his lips.

“I get it, Daryl. I get why you like dick. Pretend this is mine, now. My cock in your ass. Gonna bang you good now and watch you come. Gonna make you lose control.” And Rick proceeded to milk Daryl’s prostate so hard that he had to clap a pillow over his face to stifle his cries, his toes curling and body clenching and constricting and then exploding outward like a supernova in a matter of moments…

***

The Watcher rolled over on the mildewy couch and sat bolt upright; he’d overslept. Dust motes danced in a ray of sun that pierced the dirty window and shone down to the cement floor of the warehouse office where he’d slept. Alarmed, he grabbed at his walkie. Why hadn’t his partner awakened him? He staggered upright and squinted out the window. The blue semi-truck was still there, of course, and all appeared quiet. But for all he knew, his quarry could have disappeared while he slept.

“Hey,” he hissed into the walkie. “You there?”

“Of course I’m here. About time you checked in though—I was starting to get worried.”

“Why didn’t you wake me?”

“Little grumpy this morning? No coffee, I know. We’ll remedy that soon. I figured you needed a little rest. Our package still on the doorstep?”

“I’ll check and get back to you.”

The Watcher clipped the walkie back onto his belt and picked the parabolic microphone up from where he’d left it on the floor the night before. He’d been following these men for two days, his partner watching too, but discreetly from a distance, and always nearby if needed for backup. Watching and listening.

He was sure these two were the ones—two men, 40-ish, 5’10”, brown hair, blue eyes, slender to medium build. One curly-haired, one shaggy and straight. Last seen wearing… well, they’d obviously changed clothes. Armed and dangerous… that much was evident.

He’d thought about approaching them yesterday, but what had happened in the woods by the golf course gave him definite pause. He didn’t actually see the altercation, crouched as he was in a tangle of shrubbery, but he could hear the scuffle, the gunshot, the child’s cry. The thought crossed his mind to intervene, but he’d have risked his life and blown his cover; and whatever happened, it happened fast. He had no idea who attacked whom, or who fired the shot—only that the two men had seemed to be chasing someone. He’d made a mental note of the location of the other group, but was committed to follow his quarry—which was no easy feat as the pair then zigzagged for three miles into the next city.

The warehouse wasn’t too hard to break into, and it had an office with a window overlooking the parking lot where the blue semi-truck sat. With a cold rain beginning, he told his partner to get comfortable in the car; he would hole up here for the night and listen as long as he could.

The hard rain on the metal building made hearing conversation in the truck nearly impossible, but at one point things got rather loud, and there were ugly words and harsh noises, and he began to worry about a serious fight. What would emerge from the truck in the morning?

If these two weren’t already on his wanted list, he might have passed them over. Besides being armed and dangerous, the curly-haired one seemed deeply anxious—poised on a hair trigger. His friend, despite being rough around the edges, seemed patient and caring. He did a good job of keeping the other man calm and talking him down when his emotions started to get the best of him. Nobody had said that the two were a couple, but the Watcher couldn’t help but notice the intimate touches and looks that passed between them. They took care of one another. He had no doubt they could survive together, but could they function as part of a larger group? Maybe they were off on their own for good reason.

After watching the two men emerge and easily dispatch the biters that their noise had attracted, then go back in to bed, he had stayed up and talked to his partner about his concerns late into the night. Perhaps it was a cop-out, but he wished the other search team had found them. Unfortunately, the decision was up to him now—his partner would defer to his wishes. Should he approach them? Or should he follow his gut and leave right now, despite his assignment? He had a community to protect—wasn’t that his first priority?

As he stood in thought, staring out the bright window, the driver’s side door of the big blue semi opened slowly, and the shaggy-haired one peered out. Standing on the running board, he looked to the right, then swung the door the rest of the way open, stepped down to the ground and surveyed the yard to the left. He wore a flannel shirt, open in the front, and nothing else. His dick hung long and loose, as if…

Yeah, they were definitely a couple. At the least, they were very much enjoying each other’s company. The Watcher snorted, a little smile on his lips, and lifted his binoculars for a better view.

The man put his knife between his teeth, turned his back and began to urinate on the side of the trailer, still glancing around as he did so.

Surveying the man’s ass through the glasses, two pale half-moons just visible beneath the tail of the flannel shirt, it took the Watcher a minute to notice that the companion had emerged.

Dropping the binocs and lifting the listening device, he could easily catch their conversation. The curly-haired one was fully clothed, holding two cans of Pepsi, and he sidled up to his friend (with a smirk at his attire), and extended a can to him. The first man took it and they leaned against the trailer, basking side-by-side in the morning sun and drinking their breakfast.

_Damn, this is some swilly shit._

_Least it ain’t diet._

_Hmmph… so what the hell was that?_

_Hunh? I just burped._

_Naw, dumbass… I mean what the hell was that all about… all that ‘spanked me so hard’ and ‘big dick might hurt me’ shit? That ain’t you…_

The man looked down at his boots and snorted a little, shrugging. _You seemed to like it a few minutes ago, I’m thinkin’…_

_Well, hell…_

_Just trying to start this morning off right, I guess. Put us in a better mood. Little playtime never hurt anyone, huh? Little pretend…_

_You like to pretend, do ya?_

_Don’t you?_

_Hmmph._ The shaggy-haired man downed the last of his Pepsi, then turned and smashed the can flat on the side of the truck, making his friend startle. His voice sounded bitter when he growled pointedly, _No. I don’t._ Then he swung himself back up into the truck and disappeared.

The other man stood there frowning after him for a moment, then sighed and drained his can. Something on the ground appeared to catch his eye, and he strode forward, toward the building, five… ten… fifteen feet… out of the sun and into the shadows. He toed at some trash in the parking lot, bent over, then straightened up—and looked straight at the Watcher.

The Watcher froze, holding his breath—and wishing that his jeans weren’t suddenly so tight in the crotch. Could the man actually see him through the dirty window, in the dimly lit room? He was standing perhaps ten feet back from the glass, holding the parabolic ear partially in front of his face.

The man froze as well, eyes wide, staring hard at the window, and the Watcher could feel his heart begin to pound. Seconds ticked by, then the man took a step back… another… and lightning quick, a handgun appeared, leveled at the Watcher’s face.

“Shit,” he croaked, and suddenly felt close to panic. Should he dive for the floor and give himself away? Or remain still and hope for the best?

The man’s cold blue eyes searched the window for a few moments more, then he backpedaled rapidly  to the truck, leaping into the cab and pulling the door closed.

The Watcher sucked in a desperate breath, then another, bending double and grabbing his chest for a moment. “Damn that was close,” he rasped, to no one in particular, when he heard the telltale groan of the truck’s door again. He jumped back further into the shadows, peered out anxiously—but it was the driver’s side door that had opened. He’d spooked the men, and they were fleeing.

“Dammit… no, no, no,” the Watcher snatched at his few belongings, meaning to stuff them into his rucksack, then quickly changed plans. Enough fucking around, he decided—it was now or never. God help him, but he was doing this.

“I’m going to approach,” he snapped into his walkie, then ran down the hallway to the exit door and burst out, jogging through the parking lot; rounding the side of the truck, he slowed down to see how far ahead they were, just catching someone’s heel disappearing around the side of the next building. He put on some speed, then, and as he reached the spot where they disappeared, he could see them ahead, dashing across a two-lane street.

He halted by the side of the building.

“Rick!” he bellowed. “Daryl!”

The men whirled around, instantly on defense, and the Watcher found not just a handgun but a loaded crossbow trained on him.

He put up his hands and stepped out of the shadows, approaching slowly, calling again, “Daryl! Rick!”

They both looked stunned, blinking and wide-eyed as deer in the headlights. But the weapons stayed up.

“What d’ya want?” Daryl called shakily. “State yer business!”

“I know your people,” he shouted back, still coming on a step at a time. “I’ve got good news. My name is Aaron—they’ve sent me to find you.”

“What people?” Rick yelled, his throat sounding raw. “Who?”

The Watcher sighed, and stopped perhaps fifty feet from the men. “Glenn and Maggie. Carol. Sasha. Michonne. Abraham. Your son, Carl. Your little daughter. Others.”

Standing on the grass by the curb, Rick dropped to his knees, the gun falling to the ground by his side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Couple more chapters to go... hope you enjoyed!
> 
> I liked the last TWD episode about Morgan, more than I thought I would - what did you think? Will he pass on some of his zen to Rick? Saw the cheesemaker's little solar cabin and thought hey, there it is - they found the cabin from my story! 
> 
> Your comments make my day! So once inside Alexandria, Rick gets sidetracked, and Daryl wants to force Rick's hand in terms of their relationship. Haven't decided yet how that will go! Should he make Rick jealous? Threaten to leave? Beg and plead? Confess to somebody else and hope Rick hears about it? Or will a threat to Daryl's life (the upcoming kidnapping in the TWD trailer?) make Rick realize what he's been taking for granted? I'd love to hear what you think :)


	10. 8-track tape

Twenty minutes. It took twenty fucking minutes by car to reach the gates of Alexandria. Rick sat in the front seat with Aaron, his hand in his lap clutching his Ruger, eyes wide. Daryl sat perched forward on the edge of the backseat, with a hand surreptitiously on Rick’s right shoulder. He could feel the tremors running through the man every so often, and whenever Rick took a deep, shaky breath, Daryl gave him a firm squeeze. Aaron never stopped speaking, going on and on nervously while no one really listened about the community, the people, the homes and the solar electricity and, and, and…

Daryl was only aware of the waves of anxiety that radiated off both the men in front. Rick had tried to commandeer the situation at first, demanding to drive, insisting on a different route, but Daryl had taken him aside and urged him to back down; and with a scowl and a hesitant nod, Rick reluctantly did.

It was only the two of them to protect, after all.

_We need ta trust this guy. I dunno why, but I trust him._

Aaron’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel.

It almost all went to shit when they pulled up at a four-way intersection and slowed, and suddenly a white Cadillac appeared behind them, pulling out of a McDonald’s parking lot across the street where a peeling red-headed clown waved from the playland. Rick’s eyes widened, and suddenly his gun was pointing at Aaron’s head.

“Who the hell is that?” Rick demanded.

“That… that’s my partner…”

“Stop the fuckin’ car… stop!”

“What? Why?” Aaron spun around to see Rick’s gun inches from his face and slammed on the brakes, bouncing them all around the interior of the car; Daryl heard screeching behind them and braced himself as the Cadillac, on their tail, slid up behind and gracelessly crunched into their rear bumper.

Rick whirled around and ordered him to cover Aaron, then leapt from the car, despite Daryl’s plea to wait.

Daryl and Aaron glanced at each other, wild-eyed, then both tumbled out the doors, rushing to avert disaster. Rick was sliding across the Cadillac’s hood, yanking open the door and grabbing the hapless driver by the collar, then flinging the man with all his might to the ground. Daryl and Aaron stopped short as Rick then bent and caught the man from behind in a headlock, yarding him to his feet and throttling him with one arm, while pointing a gun at his head with the other.

Daryl suddenly flashed back to the barbecue at Terminus, and Rick grabbing Gareth’s brother fast as lightning when he noticed Glenn’s watch in the man’s pocket. Daryl pulled his pistol and held it at the ready, scanning nearby buildings and parking lots wide-eyed for more of Aaron’s people, hoping they wouldn’t open fire.

“How many of you are there?!” Rick snapped at Aaron. “Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t alone?!”

Aaron lifted his arms again, his eyes wide. “Please,” he said, “It’s just the two of us. Only two.”

Daryl looked back at the slender, red-headed man in Rick’s grasp, noted the way he was looking at Aaron. The young man was putting up a brave front, not struggling, his jaw set stoically—despite blood trickling from his forehead and nose. He was trying hard, Daryl could tell, to keep the fear from his eyes.

“Don’t fuckin’ lie to me—I’ll kill him!”

“Why does it matter how many there are?” Aaron asked. “Will you believe what I say anyway? You just need to trust me. Why would we come find you just to hurt you?”

“Why does anybody do anything anymore? How do I know all our people aren’t dead, or locked up somewhere?”

“You don’t. You just have to trust. Now please… this is Eric. Let him go.”

Aaron’s voice was unexpectedly full of emotion. Daryl slowly lowered his gun and nodded pointedly at Rick. Rick glared back at both of them. Finally, he released the man, who staggered a little and raised a hand to his bleeding nose.

“Eric,” Aaron started, stepping quickly towards his partner, but Rick’s gun came up again.

“Step back,” he commanded.

Aaron scowled. “No. You hurt him and I need to take a look. If you don’t like that, then shoot me.”

Eric protested that he was fine, but Aaron moved to brush past Rick; without even thinking, Daryl inserted himself between them, standing face-to-face with Rick’s gun and angry eyes as Aaron passed behind him.

Daryl looked at Rick hard, drawing himself up to his full height, willing Rick with every ounce of his being to back off. “ _Enough_ , now,” he murmured, his voice a sandpaper threat.

To Daryl’s relief, Rick snorted and stood down, giving Daryl a scathing look before turning his attention to the surrounding buildings.

Daryl finally let out a long breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. He walked over to the two men and pulled a semi-clean handkerchief from his back pocket, offering it without words. Aaron took it grimly, gave it a cursory examination, then used it to pinch Eric’s nostrils together. The way the pair stood so close, Aaron touching Eric’s face so carefully and tenderly, looking into his eyes, murmuring reassurance… it suddenly dawned on Daryl that they were not just partners, they were Partners. And _good people_.

“Look,” Daryl said to them conspiratorially, his voice low, “Rick didn’t mean nothin’ by all that. We just been out here too long. Met lotta bad people, seen some real bad shit. He’s… he’s just tryin’ to keep us alive. He wants to see his kids again.”

“He’s going about it entirely the wrong way,” Aaron grumbled.

Daryl sighed. “He don’t know no other way right now.”

Aaron was silent for a few moments, focusing on Eric until the man tired of the fussing and pushed Aaron back gently. Aaron turned to Daryl and looked at him searchingly. “Am I going to regret this?”

Daryl raised his head and met Aaron’s gaze head-on. “I’ll make sure you won’t.”

***

Their arrival in Alexandria still felt like a blur, and he could only remember bits and pieces, thinking back. The noise of that gate opening and closing… the surreal sights and sounds of kids walking dogs, people standing and talking in the tidy streets, sitting in lawn chairs, enjoying the sun… the big, fancy-ass house with knick-knacks and chandeliers and a working toilet.

That toilet seemed a godawful waste of water. He pissed in the yard.

Word went out and people began showing up, and he lost track of Rick, and what he remembered was Michonne’s coarse hair against his cheek, and Carol’s tears, and Glenn’s sad-eyed grin. Maggie hugged him until he thought he’d busted a rib, and Rosita kissed his face. Abraham shook his hand, later, and Eugene said something he barely understood. 

His people looked right, but they all smelled like strangers.

Sasha and Tara and Noah seemed to be missing; he would get their stories soon enough, he figured.

What struck him most of all, though, was that under the smiles and the welcome, they were holding back. There was a sad wistfulness, a reservation, a question… _Why did you go?_

He knew he’d have to answer.

Carl would not even look at him.

The Deanna woman looked at him _too_ much. She brought him into her fancy-ass living room that afternoon and asked if she could _record_ him for Chrissake, but he really had nothing to say. He felt like he’d been called to the principal’s office.

Why did he want to be here? _Rick had to find his kids again. I had to help Rick._ Why? _‘Cause he’s my brother._

She nodded, her piercing eyes looking right through him. “We’ll talk more later, Mister Dixon.”

He walked numbly back to the house and climbed the porch steps, but couldn’t bring himself to go back in. The sun hung low, but it still warmed, and he sank down against the porch post, down behind the railing, and sat on the cold boards with his knees pulled up. Rick walked out the front door moments later, and stood there looking down at him. He’d showered, shaved, and found a clean t-shirt and jacket. In the short time Daryl had been down the street with Deanna, someone had cut Rick’s hair, too—all his lovely curls, gone. He looked like he did the day they’d met, back at the quarry.

“They said explore – let’s explore,” Rick said. “Carl’s coming along with Judith.”

“Nah, I’ll stay.”

Rick blinked at him. “Alright…” He turned and stepped to the porch rail, gazed down the street. His face turned a shade wistful, and he sighed. “Lori and me, we used to drive through neighborhoods like this, thinkin’ _one day_ …”

The tiny hollow space that had begun to open in Daryl’s chest yawned a little wider. Last time he drove through a neighborhood like this, Merle was looking for a place to break into, hoping to find some oxy in somebody’s medicine cabinet. Merle, his _real_ brother. He shivered.

“Well,” he said flatly, “ _here we are_.”

Carl stepped out of the house carrying Lil’ Asskicker in one arm and a stroller in another. “I’ll be back,” Rick said over his shoulder, and followed the boy down the steps.

***

Daryl lay on the living room couch, watching the patterns of moonlight change and shift around the room. He figured it was two or three a.m., and he’d been ruminating there at least three hours since Rick went upstairs to sleep in the twin bed next to Carl’s. He hadn’t slept this far away from anyone since… he couldn’t remember when. Well, maybe at the prison—but then he’d been up on the catwalk, able to see and hear anything that went on below. He’d kept an eagle eye and a sharp ear on all the goings-on—could tell his people apart by their snores, their tears, their whispers, their moans—all from his lofty perch.

Here, he felt deaf, blind, cut-off from anything but an assault via the front door. Shit could be happening and he wouldn’t have a clue. He wanted to climb the stairs and lie in the hallway. He wanted to check on Rick and Carl. Hell, half his people weren’t even in shouting distance.

He closed his eyes again, and couldn’t believe it had been less than a day since he’d last slept with Rick. He’d definitely gotten used to having the man close over the past several weeks—even if one of them was on watch, they were nearly always within arm’s reach of one another. Daryl closed his eyes and wished for the umpteenth time that they were back in the cabin together; that he could roll over and Rick would be lying there in the big bed beside him. That he could slide his fingers through coarse chest hair, nuzzle into Rick’s armpit, feel a nipple pebble up under his touch. That Rick would put an arm around him and hug him close and say “quit fuckin’ ticklin’” in that sleepy, scratchy voice Daryl loved.

Daryl sighed, slid a hand down to hold his balls and comfort himself. If they were in that bed now, Daryl would ease himself over Rick’s body, and Rick would open up to him, cradle him between his thighs. They would be as naked as God made them, hard as twin oak trees, and they would kiss like movie stars. What they did last night was some hot and heavy fucking, but this time Daryl would _make love_ to Rick on _his_ terms. He wanted to take his sweet time, flow like molasses over Rick’s body, inject himself like heroin into Rick’s veins, fill Rick up like a waterfall plunging into a deep, mossy pool. He wanted to cover himself in Rick’s scent, like a dog rolling in a carcass. He wanted to make Rick laugh and cry and sing with pleasure. He wanted to take Rick apart piece by careful piece, like a rifle, clean him and put him back together again, oiled and shining and working perfectly.

He wanted Rick better, he wanted him _back._ The old Rick—the one who always tried his damnedest to do the right thing. The one who went back for Merle. The one who agonized for days over killing Randall. The one who insisted they keep trying to find Sophia—and the one who shot her when she staggered, snarling, from the barn. That Rick—whom he still caught glimmers of now and then—was the one he kept trying to call forth again, the one he was loyal to, the one he would die for, and the one he wanted so badly to hold.

As if in answer to his thoughts, he heard a door open and close softly upstairs; footsteps ghosted down the hall and descended the staircase, padding quietly, and Daryl could just see a slender silhouette pass through the light from the living room window. Through slitted eyes, Daryl watched Rick glide into the kitchen, then listened to him open and close drawers, root through a couple of cupboards. He could hear the slide of cutlery, and pictured Rick examining filet knives, carving forks, ice picks…

He sat up and rubbed his face, and soon enough, Rick appeared again in the doorway, still fully clothed.

“Cain’t sleep?” Daryl asked him.

Rick sighed and came over to join Daryl, sitting down hard beside him and slumping backward into the cushions. “I wake you up?”

“Naw.”

Rick ran a hand through his hair. “Can’t shut my mind off. Can’t relax. It’s all too fuckin’ bizarre.”

Daryl gazed at Rick’s soft mouth in the dim light, the shine of his eyes as he stared up at the ceiling. He slid closer. “You can relax tonight, Rick. Think we’re all safe.”

Rick snorted, glanced over at Daryl. “Feel better down here with you.”

Daryl bit back a little smile, Rick’s words warming him inside. “Been thinkin’ about you, too.” He laid a hand gently on Rick’s thigh. “You wanna just lie down here with me for a bit?”

Rick grunted, laying a sweaty hand over Daryl’s.

“If ya want,” Daryl offered, “I can suck you off nice and slow—that always works, don’t it?”

Rick hesitated a moment, then gently pushing Daryl’s hand off his leg, he sat up straight. “No… not here.”

Rick looked around. “You got an extra blanket, huh? Maybe I’ll just lie down here on the floor. I can tell Carl we got talking and I fell asleep.”

Daryl squinted at him. “Why?”

“Because, dammit,” Rick sighed. “Laying up there next to Carl, all I could think about was what I almost did to him. If it wasn’t for you… you were the one who kept him safe that night by the brook. _You_ should be up there next to him, Daryl.” Rick’s voice broke. “I don’t deserve to be his father…”

Daryl’s heart sank. “That’s a pile o’ shit, an’ you know it,” he replied adamantly. “Everything you done was for him. You were all about keepin’ your kids safe and findin’ a better place – and you were still tryin’ to do it that night by the brook. Things were about as shitty as things get, but that’s all over now and you ain’t gotta think about it no more. They’re safe here. You, too.”

Rick leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, pinched the place between his eyes and held it, drawing and releasing a slow breath, then another.

Daryl pressed close and put his arm around Rick’s shoulders. “Y’know,” he said softly after a few minutes passed, “if here ain’t good, we could go somewhere else. Didja see they got a weight bench in the basement?”

Rick sat silently for a few more minutes, then took a deep breath, patted Daryl on the knee and stood up. “Just hafta get my shit together now,” he murmured throatily, and Daryl watched as he walked off across the living room and climbed back up the stairs, never looking back.

***

From all appearances, Rick did get his shit together. Everyone seemed to buy his lie, told the next morning over the kitchen table to Carol and Michonne, that Daryl had spirited him away due to illness and dangerous delirium, which had manifested in the children’s midnight crawdad fishing trip. Sure, there were questions—and Michonne kept giving them both that eyebrow that said she weren’t born yesterday. But Rick was insistent that Daryl had made the right choice by knocking him out and carting him off, and Daryl just nodded and played along like a dumbass—and it didn’t occur to him until they were in deep that HE was the one on trial. The one whose motives were suspect. The one who made a choice that had grieved and demoralized them all, and almost destroyed Carl, while putting all their lives in graver danger.

He would never tell them otherwise.

Daryl spent that day on the porch. Abraham had gifted him a carton of cigarettes, and he smoked one after the other as people came and went to their bullshit “jobs” and Rick disappeared for hours at a time doing god-knows-what. Carol, who was dressed like somebody’s grandma, offered to show him how the shower worked—as if he were a small child—and he forced himself to thank her and tell her he was on top of it. Good cooking smells drifted from the house, but he couldn’t even think about eating.

Rick might have been pulling his shit together, Daryl mused, but he felt as though his own shit was starting to unravel. This place they had all been searching for—they were _here._ And here wasn’t somewhere he wanted to be. The fact that he couldn’t put his finger on why was tormenting him. It wasn’t just that his family members were looking at him differently. It wasn’t just that the Alexandrians weren’t looking at him at all. It wasn’t just the high walls that blocked out the fragments of woods, closing in on all sides, trapping him in high-class suburban hell.

He told himself he needed to stay, to be patient, to try to make this work, but a big part of him was desperate to shoulder his crossbow, slip out the gate and head for the hills as fast as he could. That part of him had decided that if it couldn’t run, then it could protect itself by building a wall of smoke and stench and surliness to keep the world out—to hold them all at bay.

That evening, Rick stepped out of the house with some kind of police uniform on, looking like a damn mall cop. Daryl, leaning against the porch rail in the chill night air, exhaled a cloud of smoke in his direction and picked nonchalantly at his fingernails.

“You a cop again?” he asked coldly.

“Tryin’ it on for size,” Rick answered, coming to stand beside him and gazing out into the quiet night.

A massive realization suddenly struck Daryl like a two-by-four full of nails. _That was it_ —Rick was a cop again and he was… what?  The shitty 8-track tape of Daryl’s life was being rewound—back to a time before the Turn, before Rick, before possibility and hope and friendship, before being truly himself, or somebody, or _anybody_ worth a goddamn lick—and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy cow - just a few more chapters to go! And hard to believe we are closing in on the mid-season finale. Hope you enjoyed this one. Your comments make my world go round, so please drop me a line. Thanks for all your encouragement thus far!


	11. Precious

An odd thumping noise woke him, a scuffling directly overhead followed by a muffled _pop,_ and Daryl sat bolt upright on his couch. He blinked into the darkness, staring wide-eyed up to the ceiling, mouth hanging ajar. There it was again, another _pop._ And one more.

Daryl stood up slowly, padded over to the bottom of the staircase, his bare feet soundless on the plush carpeting. He listened hard, but the big house lay still, and his ears rung with the silence. No-one stirred—had no one else heard the small commotion? Were they all sleeping like the dead?

“Rick…” he hissed loudly into the gloom. No answer.

Should he investigate? … What he heard… could it have been… ?

He mounted the stairs slowly, avoiding the squeaky spots in each riser. With each step, dread swelled larger, blooming like a black rose inside his chest. Something was wrong _… strangely_ _wrong_ … _badly wrong…_ Something awful had happened, oh Christ, and by the time he reached the landing and realized that Rick and Carl’s room was the one directly above the couch, he knew.

He was too late, he’d turned away, left them alone, let them all believe a lie, fucked it all up. It was all over, all over, oh God, all over, oh Rick, Carl…

Daryl turned the knob and pushed the door open and oh Christ! He couldn’t breathe. There was Carl, who’d put up a fight, and Mother of Jesus, no, the crib—he couldn’t look. And Rick, lying shirtless, one arm dangling limply off the twin mattress. Rick, _why?_

He couldn’t breathe. He fell to his knees, gasping, trying to fill his lungs just the tiniest bit. He struggled for air, drew it in by suffocating teaspoonfuls, by coffee straws, minute after agonizing minute, until he had collected just enough to scream…

“Daryl! Daryl, wake up. Are you ok? Daryl!”

Daryl flung an arm out and caught Aaron in the ribs, knocking him backward. He struggled to sit up, disoriented and breathless, his chest tight with horror. The room was dim, lit only by the embers of a dying fire, and he gazed around in confusion until Aaron crawled back into his field of view.

“Hey… that must have been some nightmare,” Aaron said softly, his face full of concern.

A hand landed gently on Daryl’s shoulder, and without thinking, he shrugged it off rather violently and lurched to his feet, staggering a little. He let his legs move him to the window, and he pulled the curtain back and stared, panting, into the blackness, seeing nothing but the dark silhouettes of trees and the side of the neighbor’s house.

He felt a sudden, desperate need to flee back to Alexandria, back to the street he hated and the house of his nightmare. To run up those stairs and make sure they were ok. What if it wasn’t just a dream? What if it was a sign? What if Rick was burning up inside and he wasn’t there to quench the flames? Why had he agreed to this recruiting trip?

He pressed his hot forehead against the cool window glass, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. He felt sick. He wanted to cry.

“Daryl… I’m sorry to scare you. Can I help?”

Daryl shook his head against the window, but Aaron’s kind voice cracked open a floodgate inside him, and he found himself suddenly battling tears that began to squeeze from the corners of his eyes.

“You’re trembling,” Aaron observed. There were the hands on him again, so tentative. He stiffened, but the warm palms didn’t leave his shoulders; instead, Aaron’s fingers began rubbing him gently, squeezing his trapezius muscles, thumbs digging into his upper back. “… and you’re really tense.”

Daryl couldn’t tell him to stop without choking, so he simply stood there and let a few tears escape down his face unseen, tried to unclench his fists, tried to breathe: in through the nose, out through the mouth. Aaron’s fingers and thumbs worked their way slowly over to his neck, up to base of his skull, then down his back to his shoulders again and finally stopped, squeezing Daryl’s upper arms gently.

“Better?”

Daryl had uncoiled a bit inside, the tears and trembling subsiding, but the longing to return was still there. He sighed and stood up straight, rubbed his sleeve across his nose and swiped the wetness from his eyes, then turned from the window to face Aaron. “Feel like I gotta go back, man.”

Aaron looked at him hard. “Because of your dream? You want to tell me about it?

Daryl wished he _could_ tell him about it. He was tired of dragging this secret burden around alone, that was for goddamn sure.

He’d nearly told Carol the truth a week ago.

***

Squatting on Aaron’s garage floor, pawing through a drawer for the right socket, he heard her footsteps approaching up the drive. Her shadow fell across him and he glanced up, squinting into the lowering sun. She was carrying Judith, bundled up in a fuckin’ adorable little goddamn pink bunny snowsuit or something, and Daryl quickly tugged the smoldering cig from his mouth and stubbed it out on the cement.

“Bike is really coming along,” Carol observed pleasantly.

“Uh-huhn,” he replied, then stood up quite without thinking and held his hands out to Judith—who responded by reaching for him. He smiled; at least _she_ still loved him.

But Carol crooked an eyebrow and gave his right hand a pointed glance. Daryl realized he was covered in grease. He hastily snatched at his shop rag and scrubbed the offending grime off, then reached for the baby again and took her into his arms, cuddling her warm little body to his chest.

Carol sighed, watching, and when he finally looked up at her again, her face had changed.

“You know I understand, don’t you?” she said to him gently.

He felt the corners of his mouth tug downward, but he nodded at her.

“I know you tried to do the right thing. Sometimes the right thing backfires. And sometimes it seems like no one else understands.”

Daryl let her words sink in while he stood there gently bouncing Judith, watching her gnaw on her fat little fist until a string of drool began to form and slowly make its way down to his shirt.

“You know, people were confused and scared when you left. We were really worried. Some of us were angry. But we never really stopped trusting that whatever happened, you were trying to do the right thing.”

Judith let out a short string of babble, and Daryl used a finger to swipe the drool from her chin. “Sometimes people _think_ they know what happened, when they don’t,” he muttered.

“Mmm,” Carol hummed. “So… you wanna _tell_ me what really happened?”

Daryl’s heart skipped a beat, and he realized he’d given away too much.

“Rick told ya,” he replied without looking at her.

“But _you_ didn’t…”

Daryl let his eyes drift over the motorcycle beside him, nearly completed after several days of wrenching in Aaron’s garage. He thought about what he would be doing once it was done—letting it take him far from this place. Starting his new recruiting job. That thought was at once exhilarating and frightening.

“Rick…” he began, still looking at little Judith, “…he’s been under a lotta stress. He ain’t quite right. He weren’t right that night and he still ain’t. Wish I could fix him up like this bike, but…”

“You can’t. I know.”

“Look out for him while I’m gone, huh?” Daryl pled. “Keep an eye on Lil’ Asskicker here, ‘n Carl too?”

“Of course I will,” Carol had replied, taking the baby back. “Don’t you worry.”

***

Daryl straddled the arm of the sofa beside him and let his shoulders slump. “Ain’t ‘cause I’m scared to be out here… I know what happens out here,” he said to Aaron. “I’m worried about what’s happenin’ back home.”

“Mmm. I know it must be hard to be so far away from your people. But don’t you think they’re as safe there as they can be?”

Daryl fidgeted with a small rip in the sofa upholstery. “I worry about Rick,” he said quietly. “He’s takin’ everyone else’s problems on now… even though he’s got enough shit goin’ on of his own. Enough shit for an army.”

“Deanna seems to think he’s doing a good job…”

Daryl snorted, thinking about the things Rick had said about Deanna and the Alexandrians.

“I don’t like this,” Rick had complained, scowling, while Daryl installed the rear wheel shocks on the bike. “You’re gonna go back out there, put your life into one of these people’s hands? You know they don’t have a clue.”

“Aaron has a clue,” Daryl had replied testily, crouching down with his wrench.

Concentrating on his task, he could nevertheless picture Rick gazing down the street, getting that far-away look in his eye when he said “Yeahhh…,” drawing it out so slowly and condescendingly. “Well, you best take care of yourself. Watch your ass.”

Rick’s boots had walked away, and Daryl had wondered how, exactly, Rick meant that.

Aaron sighed. “Look,” he said, still standing in front of Daryl, “I know Rick has his moments, and you like to be there for him. You’re really good to him. But he’s a big boy—I’m sure he can handle himself. And he’s got the rest of your people around him now, too.”

Daryl shrugged. “Yeah—I guess.”

“Or maybe… you’re just missing him…”

Aaron’s tone made Daryl look up, and he suddenly wanted to knock the little smirk off Aaron’s handsome face. He felt a flush of heat rising up his neck, glad that it was too dark for the other man to see.

“Why d’ya say _that_?” Daryl muttered darkly.

Aaron chuckled. “Well, I did watch you guys for two-and-a-half days straight. Got an eye and an ear-ful a couple of times, if you know what I mean. I don’t imagine you’re getting quite so much private time now as you did then…”

Daryl’s jaw clenched and he shoved himself to his feet, right up in Aaron’s face. “That what you like doin’? You like t’ watch, ya fuckin’ pervert?” he snarled. “You _tell_ anybody about whatchu saw?”

Aaron stepped back, surprised. “Whoa, wait… it wasn’t on purpose… I… hey…” Daryl could see it dawning on his face, now. “You’re not _out_ , are you?”

“No I ain’t _out,_ and neither is Rick, and if you…”

Aaron held his hands up in appeasement. “Don’t say it, it’s ok… your secret’s safe with me.” He sighed. “I’m sorry… that was kind of insensitive of me. And none of my business.”

Aaron looked like such a kicked puppy for a moment that Daryl almost felt sorry for him. He took a step back and shoved his hands in his pockets. His anger drained away rather quickly, replaced by something akin to relief. He didn’t have to keep this secret from Aaron anymore; and he knew that Aaron had no problem fully accepting who he was.

“It’s ok, man,” Daryl murmured. “Forget about it.”

Aaron nodded slowly, eyes shining. “We good then?” he asked hesitantly.

“Yeah.” Daryl sat back down on the arm of the sofa again, picked the dirt out from under a thumbnail. If he went running back now, Rick would be fine, and he’d be lying there again on his couch within two hours, staring up at that ceiling and feeling like an idiot. He’d already spent too many lonely nights on that couch.

_Fuck that couch and fuck Rick Grimes._

Daryl looked back up at Aaron. “If it weren’t fer you I’d prob’ly be gone,” he blurted.

Aaron frowned. “You’ve been that unhappy?”

Daryl shrugged, pulled his lower lip between his teeth and worried it for a moment or two. “Felt outta place till y’all kinda took me in. An’ gave me an excuse ta get out fer awhile. Y’ didn’t hafta be so good t’ me.”

Aaron nodded again, stepped closer to where Daryl perched. “You needed it, and I figured you deserved it. You’re a good person. I could see that from the first day I… watched you.”

Daryl looked up at Aaron’s smiling face, into his big, blue bedroom eyes, and felt a sudden urge to touch him. The longing flickered through his body like a mild shock, heat lightning in a cloud, lighting up his nerves and leaving behind an electric tingle. He spread his fingers out on his pantlegs, pressing down his sweaty palms.

“So,” he murmured. “What’d ya see?”

“Well, I watched you being patient and giving… Taking the lead when you needed to… Going through a group of walkers like it was nothing…”

“Mmmph. What _else_ didja see?”

Aaron blinked at him, and Daryl didn’t avert his gaze. The man’s smile faded, and he tilted his head a little, studying Daryl, obviously wondering what to say. He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

“I saw you knew you could trust me.”

“Anything else?” Daryl ran his palms languidly up and down his thighs, splayed on either side of the sofa arm. Aaron’s eyes dropped, and he shuffled his feet, hooked his thumbs into his pants pockets.

“Saw _you,”_ Aaron finally muttered, without looking at him. “You climbed out of that truck in just a shirt that morning. And I did… I did look.”

Daryl reached out slowly and took hold of Aaron’s left hand, pulling it gently toward him. “Like what ya saw?” A little voice inside his head asked him what the hell he was doing. He studiously ignored it.

“I did,” Aaron whispered, staring at his hand in Daryl’s as if mesmerized.

Daryl slid off the sofa arm and stood up, then closed the gap between them, stepping up to Aaron and bringing him close—one hand at the small of the man’s back, and the other sliding into his hair. Aaron was taller, and Daryl had to tilt his head back and pull the man’s lips down to his for a warm, wet kiss. Aaron responded slowly at first, then with more enthusiasm as Daryl kissed him over and over, sucking gently at his mouth, licking his lips open, slipping him some tongue.

Within moments, they were locked together tightly, arms straining and fingers clutching, thighs rubbing together, tongues thrusting between teeth. Aaron’s hand landed on Daryl’s ass, and Daryl answered with a grab of his own, and an undulation that suddenly brought their hard cocks into contact through their jeans.

Aaron gasped and broke the kiss, pressed his forehead against Daryl’s, panting. “Shit, we should stop…”

“You _wanna_ stop?”

Aaron’s mouth found his again, and Daryl squeezed him tight, giving him another slow pelvic roll, feeling the delicious friction of Aaron’s dick rubbing against his.

“Oh God, Daryl… What’re you doing to me?”

“Whaddaya _want_ me to do to ya?”

“Oh… don’t ask me that…”

Another minute, and they were on the floor, and Daryl knew somewhere inside that he’d regret this, and it was a bad decision, but life was so short and _fuck_ he wanted to suck Aaron’s dick and watch him lose it, and he was lying between the man’s legs and tugging at his belt when Aaron said, “Eric really isn’t gonna like this…” in sort of a shaky voice.

Daryl stopped what he was doing, and felt his own pang of guilt spread through his belly. Aaron’s fingers, tangled in his hair, pulled on Daryl’s head gently and forced him to look up.

“I do want you,” Aaron said, “and it would feel good, but…”

Daryl growled out a sigh and shoved himself into a sitting position. “But yer forgettin’ about Eric.”

Aaron sat up too. “And you’re forgetting about Rick.”

“Maybe I _wanna_ forget about Rick.”

Aaron sighed and turned to the dying fire, picking up a small log and using it to poke up the embers, then placing it on top of the coals. “I do wish Eric liked sex more,” he lamented.

Watching the other man, Daryl settled himself cross-legged and tried to adjust his erection so it wasn’t pinched in half by his jeans. He smoothed out his bedroll on the floor and picked a couple pieces of bark off his blanket. “Wish Rick would give _me_ the fuckin’ time o’ day anymore.”

Aaron snorted a little. “Well, I guess we’re both lucky to have someone at all, huh?”

Daryl thought back on the half-dozen dinners he’d shared with Aaron and Eric while working on the bike Aaron had given him. He’d watched the two of them with growing fascination—they were his real-life Nick and Tony, an actual gay couple in what appeared to be a stable, loving relationship. And they had been so open, so trusting, so kind to him, despite his defenses, that he could hardly fathom it.

He couldn’t believe he’d just blithely tried to jeopardize that.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “Yeah, we’re lucky.”

Aaron reached to pat Daryl’s shoulder, and got to his feet. “I’ve still got another hour on watch. Try to get some more sleep.”

Daryl didn’t argue; he watched Aaron walk back to the sofa and sit, then he slowly crawled back into his bedroll, pulling the blankets to his chin. Under cover of semi-darkness and a couple of old blankets, he rolled over and jerked himself off as quickly and quietly as possible, trying not to think of Rick. Or Aaron.

***

It only made sense the next day—when the walkers had poured out of the trap at the canning factory and surrounded them inside the car—that Daryl offered to get out and lead them away.

He’d been feeling guilty all morning, wondering what the hell had possessed him to come onto Aaron the night before. It didn’t help that every time he looked over at the man, he noticed just how pouty and soft his lips were, or how round and muscular his ass. It was too easy to remember the way those lips felt against his own, or the firmness of that ass in his hand. His mind kept wandering to what might have happened if Aaron hadn’t called a time-out.

Would Rick have cared?

They stood at the edge of a weedy field for awhile, scanning once again for the man in the red poncho they’d been following for two days. Daryl took the binoculars from his eyes, and sighed.

“If we had… you know… fucked around last night… would you ‘ave told Eric?”

Aaron gave him a sideways glance. “I’m no good at keeping secrets from him. He trusts me.”

“Would ‘e be jealous?”

“Well, I imagine—but trust is the bigger issue.”

“Mmm.”

The two men walked on for a bit, reaching a county road and sauntering along the shoulder for a distance, looking and listening.

“Think he’d still love ya if he didn’t trust ya?” Daryl asked softly.

Aaron crooked an eyebrow up, watching the nearby woods. “I wouldn’t want to find out.”

“What if it was him fuckin’ around on _you_?”

Aaron stopped and looked at Daryl, his blue eyes serious. “Then I’d wonder if he really loved me.”

***

Inside the car at the cannery, the sound of so many hands pounding and mouths hissing was surprisingly loud. Daryl would have figured Aaron to be terrified at being hopelessly surrounded, but the man impressed him by remaining cool as a damn cucumber.

“The glass ought to hold them for a while,” Aaron observed.

“Prob’ly,” Daryl allowed. “If we can block the windows… if they can’t see us… maybe somethin’ else’ll come by and they’ll get distracted.” Daryl twisted around, looking into the back, assessing their resources. “Hasta be somethin’ in here we can use. Floor mats maybe.”

That was when Aaron pulled the crumpled note out from between the front seats, written in what appeared to be ink and blood.

TRAP BAD PEOPLE COMING DON’T STAY

He had so many more questions to ask, but now their situation had gone from requiring patience to requiring an actual plan of escape. And what if they didn’t make it?

He snorted, and Aaron looked over at him expectantly.

_“What?”_

“How d’ya know when yer in love?” Daryl blurted.

A bemused smile spread across Aaron’s face. “Are we really having this conversation right _now?_ Don’t we have bigger fish to fry? That’s not a short answer.”

“’k then,” Daryl said, lighting his last smoke to calm his nerves, “how d’ya know when somebody loves you, or when yer just gettin’ _used?"_

Aaron’s patience never seemed to run dry. He looked out at the decomposing faces as if not seeing them, then turned back to Daryl. “Love is a two-way street,” he said. “There’s give and take. It’s physical and emotional. Little kindnesses. Thoughtfulness. Trust. If there’s only one of you giving what’s important, and the other taking… someone’s getting used.”

Daryl grunted, taking a moment to process. Then he looked hard at Aaron. He couldn’t let anything happen to this man: this good person who knew how to love and had someone to love him, and who’d treated Daryl _and_ Eric last night with nothing but respect and kindness. There weren’t enough Aarons left in this world.

“This was a bad idea,” Aaron was saying, changing the subject. “You were right. We should’ve kept looking for that guy in the poncho. If I’d listened to you, we wouldn’t be here.”

Daryl drew on his cigarette and decided quickly on a plan of action. “I’ll go,” he said. “I’ll jump out and lead ‘em off and you run for the fence.”

Aaron looked a bit alarmed. “No—I can’t let you do that alone. This was all _my_ fault.”

“My decision’s final,” Daryl replied. “And we both decided to come in here. Just lemme finish my smoke, an’ I’ll go.”

“You’re not doing it alone,” Aaron insisted. “We’ll go together. We have to. I want to.”

Was this guy for real? Daryl couldn’t help but smile a little at Aaron’s bravery. He gave a final nod and stubbed his cigarette out. “Alright then. On the count ‘o three.”

The two men braced themselves, holding their weapons in one hand, the car door handles in the other. Daryl’s heart began to pound as his fight or flight reflex revved like an engine.

“One, two…”

Blood suddenly splattered against Aaron’s window, as one, two, three walkers mysteriously went down. Someone yanked Aaron’s door open and they both leapt from the car to see a dark-skinned man with nothing but a stick smashing and hacking his way through the crowd of corpses. Daryl didn’t ask questions—just slashed and shoved his way to the gate, and emerged miraculously in one piece.

Aaron slammed the fence closed, and the three of them stood panting for a moment in safety.

“Wow! That was something!” Aaron exclaimed effusively, and introduced himself and Daryl to the stranger, who introduced himself as Morgan.

 _“Why?”_ Daryl asked, amazed and a little suspicious that a total stranger would have stopped to bail their sorry asses out.

Morgan smiled at him. “Why? ‘Cause all life is precious, Daryl.”

Aaron launched excitedly into his recruiting talk, but the stranger’s words kept echoing in Daryl’s ears. It was then that he remembered something—something he’d noticed when they first entered the yard and made their way up to the loading docks.

“Hold up a minute,” he said to Morgan and Aaron, interrupting. “I’ll be right back.”

With that, he jogged away, along the fence line, taking the time to run all the way around the building and circle around to the east corner of the yard. Someone had cut a flap in the chain link there, next to the wall, and he slipped through unnoticed by the walkers, who were still staggering toward where Aaron and Morgan stood. There were some trash cans near a window well—and there it was again—a mewling sound, a tiny, desperate yowl. He’d heard it earlier when he and Aaron had approached the first trailer.

Daryl lifted one of the trash cans aside and peered down into the window well, and sure enough, a skinny, gray kitten cowered at the bottom of the three-foot pit. He glanced around, then got down on his belly and leaned into the well to grab the little creature. It took a few swipes and a nasty little scratch or two, but he managed to nab the animal and keep ahold of it as he lifted it from the pit. He could feel its little bones through its flea-bitten pelt.

He turned and got to his feet just in time to see a walker approaching, and made for the fence again, shoving the kitten into his leather jacket before slipping through the chain link flap and hustling back to Aaron and Morgan.

“Where’s your mama?” he cooed to the little creature. “She still around? Should I letcha go, or take ya home?”

In the minute it took him to reach his companions again, he’d made his decision—the kitten had curled up inside his coat and begun purring against his chest. He couldn’t hear the sound over all the walkers hissing at the fence, but he could feel the steady vibration. It felt like life itself.

Aaron looked at him, puzzled, as he approached. “Where’d you go?” he asked. Then pointing to the lump Daryl was cradling under his jacket, he crooked an eyebrow. “What’s that?”

Daryl couldn’t help but smile a little, and angle his body so the men could peek inside his coat.

“All life is precious, man. Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little Daaron, 'cause that man is so adorable not even Daryl can resist him. And 'cause you know what Rick is up to behind Daryl's back, and turnabout is fair play, Rick! Don't worry, Rick will be back in all his crazy glory next chapter. The scene in the car at the canning factory is not my own, but adapted from the series. Rising Earth, this kitten is for you - what will Daryl name it? Comments please - I live for them! Thanks for all the love!


	12. Ev'ry Which Way but Loose

It wasn’t his nightmare, but it came close, and Daryl wasn’t prepared for the sight: A crowd of terrorized faces in the light of a bonfire, two men and a crumpled walker lying in pools of blood… and Rick standing in their midst, disheveled and dripping gore like some kind of deranged werewolf.

“Rick…” Morgan said, and the man turned, the whites of his eyes flashing.

Daryl’s hand went to the knife at his belt and he quickly assessed the scene, heart in his throat. What the hell had just happened? Who fired the shot? Was Rick turning on them? Were they turning on him? Where were his people? His eyes met those of Maggie and Carol, and he realized that the attention was now on the dead men, their wives and the personal tragedies unfolding on the ground. People were turning from Rick and forgetting about him for the moment, feeling the threats had been neutralized.

Despite the smoking gun in Rick’s hand, and the unhinged look in his eye.

***

Carol slipped up behind Daryl and filled him in on the way back to the house: Pete needed to die—he was an alcoholic and a wife-beater. Rick confronted Pete yesterday and ended up brawling and ranting in the street; about the time he started waving a gun around and menacing Deanna, Michonne put an end to it by knocking his ass out. The Alexandrians called a tribunal to decide his fate, but Rick was late because someone left the gate open and let a walker in. Meanwhile, Pete turned up in a drunken rage and came after Rick but ended up killing Reg with Michonne’s katana; after which act Rick was quick to shoot Pete in the head with Deanna’s blessing.

_“That all?”_ Daryl muttered dryly, his head spinning.

At the house, Rick had a few words with Morgan, tossed off some instructions to Abraham to take the man to a holding cell, then left a trail of bloody footprints down the hall carpet and slammed into the bathroom.

Carl, standing in the kitchen, stared after him wide-eyed. “Dad..?”

Daryl started to follow, then thought twice and turned around, stepping around the kitchen island. Reaching into his coat, he pulled out a tiny gray kitten and set it down on the cupboard in front of the boy.

“Here,” he said to Carl, “find him somethin’ to eat.”

“Shit, _what the…?”_ Carl exclaimed.

“Watch yer mouth,” Daryl tossed out over his shoulder, walking away again; then he stopped once more and turned, waving his hand at the cat. “Oh, an’… don’t give ‘im to yer sister yet. Prob’ly got fleas n’ ringworm n’ shit.”

“Ugh…”

Daryl glanced up and down the empty hall, then opened the bathroom door and slipped inside. The room was already humid with steam, and Daryl stepped over the pile of rank and bloody clothes Rick had left on the floor. Rick stood in the shower stall; Daryl could see the length of his pale body through the glass door. Hot water pounded on his back, but he wasn’t moving—forehead and hands pressed against the shower tiles. Daryl turned and locked the door, then shed his own layers of clothing and stepped up to the stall.

“Rick,” he called softly, not wanting to startle the man. There was no answer, so he simply entered the enclosure and stood there, feeling hot water spray against his chest and run down one leg, the rest of his body chilling in the cool air.

“Hey,” he murmured, laying a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “You ok?” He peered at the side of Rick’s face, seeing up-close the nasty cuts in his right cheek and across his nose. The steri-strips that someone had painstakingly applied were beginning to dampen and peel off.

Rick sighed. “I will be,” he replied dully. He opened his right eye and squinted at Daryl through the rivulets of water coursing from his dripping curls—looking the naked man up and down. “The hell you _doin’_ in here?” he asked, sounding more tired than irritated.

“Jus’ checkin’ on you, man.” Daryl stepped up behind Rick, under the spray; he bent his head and kissed the nape of Rick’s neck, feeling the water pour through his hair, then placed his hands gently on the man's hipbones, and pulled their bodies flush. Rick seemed to go boneless against him, letting his head fall back on Daryl’s shoulder, and Daryl slid one hand up Rick’s abdomen and rested it on his breast, holding his friend in his arms while the water beat against Rick’s chest. “Sure you’re alright?”

“Just shot a man between the eyes,” Rick murmured. “After I found a walker in the street and wrung its brainstem with my bare hand to keep it from eating my face. Prob’ly sucked a pint of nasty spooge up my nose when it puked all over me. Was on the way to my own trial for fightin’ with Pete and pullin’ a gun on Deanna.”

“Pete do that to yer face?”

“We flew through a goddamn plate glass window…”

Daryl sighed in exasperation, tightening his grip on the man. “I leave ya for _three days…_ an’ ya go all Philo Beddoe on me.”

Rick laughed mirthlessly, his body tensing up again. “Mighta got worse if Michonne hadn’t knocked me out… still got an awful headache, though. An’ now you bring home _another_ crazy bastard.”

“Morgan saved my ass,” Daryl murmured into Rick’s shoulder.

“Last time I saw him he tried to _kill_ mine,” Rick growled. He stood up straight again and grabbed the soap, working it into a lather and scrubbing his pits with a vengeance. Daryl caught some of the suds and began to rub them into Rick’s back.

He had a sudden flashback to the prison… the last time he’d been in a shower with Rick. It was the day he’d returned with Merle, just in time to find Rick in a mortal struggle for his life outside the fence—and his people under attack by the Governor. Later, back in the cool catacombs of the building, he’d hunted for Rick and finally located his friend huddled in a ball in the dim shower room, shivering naked on the floor under a cold spray. Daryl had stopped only to throw his vest in the corner, kneeling beside Rick on the slimy cement and taking the man into his arms. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen Rick naked, but it was the first time he’d touched him in that state. Sex had been the furthest thing from his mind.

Rick had been practically catatonic as Daryl attempted to dry him off with a mildewed towel he found and put him back into his sweaty, ragged clothes. He’d walked his pale, utterly exhausted friend slowly to his cell, sheltering him from prying eyes with his own body, and helped him into a new shirt before tucking him into his bunk. Without even thinking, he’d kissed Rick’s forehead…

A knock on the bathroom door interrupted Daryl’s reverie. “Dad? Hey, dad?” Carl’s voice called.

Rick suddenly jolted away from Daryl as if shocked, whirling around. “Hold on, Carl, I’ll be out in a bit,” he called, voice hoarse.

He glared at Daryl. “Get out!” he whispered harshly.

“’S ok, door’s locked,” Daryl murmured.

“Can I just come in?” Carl asked.

“Door’s locked!” Rick yelled back, then hissed at Daryl again. “C’mon, man, _go!”_

“Don’ need ta _panic_ …” Daryl groused, one hand on the door handle.

“He doesn’t need to see us like this, Daryl…”

“Dad, we need to talk, ok?”

“Yeah, ok! I’ll be out!”

“Rick, man, _we_ need to talk,” Daryl pled softly.

“Can I wash my balls in privacy?” Rick spat, his eyes flashing with anger, “Or is that too much to ask?”

Daryl crossed his arms and stood with his back to the shower door, scowling darkly. “When we gonna talk, Rick? _When?_ ”

Rick growled in exasperation, but then he sighed and his face softened somewhat. He looked Daryl up and down and nodded, lifting a hand to slick the dripping curls back from his forehead. “Yeah, ok, you win. Meet me at the gate at dawn tomorrow.”

Rick insisted on leaving the bathroom first to find and talk to Carl, so Daryl could emerge in a few minutes when the coast was clear without arousing suspicion. With a surge of perverse pleasure, Daryl imagined himself dripping his way into the kitchen wearing a towel and a smile and handing Rick a pair of boxer shorts in front of everyone. Instead, he dried off slowly and carefully and donned his dirty clothes again, then headed down the hall.

Rick and Carl and Carol stood arguing by the refrigerator. He could see past them into the living room, and the fact that someone had left a pile of junk on his couch felt like the last straw.

Still on the counter, the kitten was licking its lips in front of a small, nearly empty bowl. Daryl elbowed past his friends rudely and grabbed the little animal, tucking it under his arm.

“Gimme my goddamn cat.”

***

The two men walked in silence for a distance, the only sound their feet crunching in the frosty grass. When they finally arrived at the bell tower in the gray light of dawn, Rick held open the door and motioned Daryl inside.

“We can talk in here—send Sasha down for breakfast.”

Rick hollered out to Sasha, and her head appeared at the top of the stairway. “Hey, I need to show Daryl something,” Rick called. “You wanna take a break, head in for a while?”

They could hear her gathering her things together, and Daryl waited, slouched against the wall, as she descended the steps. She nodded at him without smiling, her eyes a little bleary, and Daryl nodded back. Rick stepped outside with her, and they spoke quietly for a moment, then he returned. He sighed and waved a hand toward the staircase. “After you.”

Up in the tower, Rick gazed out the east window toward the sunrise, and Daryl could only stare at his profile dumbly. His mind had gone completely blank. All the questions, all the confessions, flying away with the flock of blackbirds swirling from a nearby oak.

Rick turned to him and saw him staring, but Daryl couldn’t look away.

“Listen,” Rick started softly, “I just want to say I… I’m sorry. I’d like to say I wasn’t purposely avoiding you the past few weeks, but the truth is… I was.”

“Why?” Daryl blurted, sounding more plaintive than he’d intended.

“Well, I been asking myself that, and… a couple reasons, maybe.” Rick reached over to the windowsill and picked up a couple of bullet casings, began rolling them between his fingers, watching them intently. “One is that… I was ashamed.”

“Of what?” Daryl murmured.

“Of myself,” Rick answered. “Of the way I acted… with you.” Rick carefully stood the casings up on their ends, side by side, back on the sill. “I was a damn animal, before _and_ after I got sick. I used you… sometimes. It… it wasn’t right.”

Rick finally glanced back up at him, and his blue eyes reflected guilt, angst and pain. Daryl just wanted to hold him.

“I know,” Daryl heard himself say, making excuses for Rick. “I get it. Sometimes you just need somebody. Sometimes I used you, too _._ ”

Rick shook his head, turned his gaze out the window again. “It wasn’t right,” he repeated. “But it is what it is. It happened. And now… now I’m tryin’ to get my head straight. Get my shit together. Havin’ good days and bad days. And it feels like maybe… maybe we can make this place work. Make it our home. And I’m thinkin’ about what that’s gonna look like.” He smiled a little. “A future. For Carl, for Judith, for me… for all of us. Gonna take some work… gotta get these people onboard… but it’s possible, I think.”

Daryl shoved his hands in his pockets, waiting for the point. It was cold in the tower, and a chill ran through him. He could hear starlings chattering on a nearby roof, and someone call out in the street below. Rick looked uncomfortable, and his voice sounded thick when he spoke again.

“Daryl, I think… I think maybe you and I started something out there… together.”

The words hung in the air above them like a veil of smoke, and Rick looked at Daryl, his eyes searching. Daryl’s heart rose up into his throat, his blood pounding in his ears.

He made a breathy sound, nodding.

“Thing is… I don’t know where to go with it. I get the feelin’ you want more. But I…” Rick huffed out a breath, kicked at the floor. “Fuck, this is hard to talk about,” he complained. He looked up at the ceiling, trying to gather his thoughts, and Daryl felt like his life was hanging on Rick’s next words.

“You what, Rick?” he urged.

“I don’t know if I can be what you want, Daryl.” Rick turned to him. “What is it? What is it you want? From me?”

Daryl blinked at him, hearing Aaron’s words in his head. _Tell him. Tell him what you want. You won’t get it otherwise._

Daryl scowled down at the floor, bent and picked up a few more shell casings, stood back up and clenched them in his palm. “Just wanna be with you,” he muttered. “Be there fer you. Have each other’s backs.”

“Is that all?”

Daryl made a noncommittal grunt, his stomach flip-flopping violently. _No that ain’t all, dumbass!_ he wanted to shout, but the words were caught in his throat.

“Cause if that’s all, we’re doin’ that now…” Rick was pushing.

“That _ain’t_ all,” Daryl ground out. “Wanna be like… together.” Then he added, barely audibly, “Wanna come to yer bed at night.”

Rick nodded slowly. “So you want us to be lovers… boyfriends…” he murmured.

Daryl shuffled his feet, fidgeting, staring at the floor, feeling a hot flush rise up his neck. “ _Pfft._ Sounds lame when you say it like that, don’t it? But… whatever.” _There it was._

The wall creaked as Rick leaned hard against it. “Daryl, I… I don’t know. I been straight as an arrow since I was 15… and now you’re askin’ me to change my life… to be a gay man…”

“Weren’t so straight a couple weeks ago,” Daryl growled.

“When we were on our own, it was different. It didn’t matter what we did—wasn’t a soul around to see. An’ I didn’t know whether we’d ever see any of our people again. I… I wasn’t exactly myself, either. I told you—I’m ashamed of the shit I did.”

“You keep sayin’ that!” Daryl exclaimed, his voice rising in anger. “What exactly you ashamed of? You gonna tell me? Was it maybe the blow jobs? My dick in your ass? Your dick in mine? The way you made love to me? You ashamed of _that_?”

Rick’s mouth dropped open. “Uh…”

“Maybe yer ashamed of _us!_ Or is it me? Tell me, Rick _,_ was I really just your fuckin’ _whore_?”

“No! Stop! Daryl, fuck, it wasn’t like that!”

“Then what was it like, Rick?” Daryl cried, his voice breaking. Shaking hard with emotion, he glared at Rick and saw with a tiny bit of satisfaction that there were tears welling in his eyes.

“I said you were everythang to me, and I meant it,” Rick groaned. “I care so much about you. You’re my brother and my best friend, and now we’ve gone and slept together, an’ I... You saved my life, my kids… I owe you more than I can ever… This hurts me, Daryl. I don’t wanna hurt you. I feel like shit, but…”

“But WHAT?”

“I don’t think… I don’t think I can do this with you. I don’t know if it’s what I want for the rest of my life. For Carl. For Judith. I _like_ women, Daryl. You want me to give that up? How do I… what do I do? Shit, I never saw this comin’!”

“It’s _her,_ isn’t it? The doctor’s wife? Now that you popped a cap in him, you want her!”

“Daryl…”

“You want her, fuckin’ admit it!” Daryl cried.

“I don’t know! I don’t know what the hell I want!” Rick turned from him and slammed his fist into the wall, then let his head fall against it, groaning in anguish.

Daryl stood looking at Rick’s back, shaking so hard he thought his knees might give out then and there. “Well fuckin’ figure it out,” he croaked. “I ain’t got forever.”

And then he was fleeing, stumbling down the stairs, shouldering his crossbow and shoving through the door. He jogged out across the road and into the woods, hearing Rick call his name. Just once.

***

He walked a straight line, keeping the sun on his left; walked a long time, until the shakes disappeared, until the anger subsided. Then kept on walking. Hours passed, and still he couldn’t allow Rick’s words back into his consciousness.

It was Merle’s voice that finally broke through the radio silence in his head.

_What the fuck did you expect, Little Brother? Figured you and Sheriff Rick were just gonna ride off into the sunset together? Betcha didn’t figure on him riding every other filly in town, didja?_

Merle’s smug, shit-eating grin seemed to materialize out of thin air in front of him—like the Cheshire Cat—and Daryl halted in his step and stared at the tree trunk in front of him, unseeing.

“Fuck you,” he ground out.

Merle’s laugh echoed in his head. _Man, I’d say your gay-dar is BUSTED. He took one look at bottle-blonde sugar-tits there and switched teams again, didn’t he? I really didn’t have him figured for a faggot, though. An asshole and a two-faced liar, maybe, but not a faggot. Or maybe… maybe just a fair-weather faggot. Is that a thing?_

“Yer the asshole…”

_Yer chasin’ unicorns again, Darleena. And what’d I tell ya ‘bout chasin’ unicorns? All you get is the shaft. Though in your case I guess you’d like that…_

“You’re _wrong,_ man,” Daryl growled, his voice breaking.

_Am I? Then why you cryin’, pussycat? You knew from day one that he was out of our league. Slummin’ with the likes of you was fine when you were protectin’ his crazy ass on the road ev’ry day. Now that y’all have walls, he’s lookin’ for a baby mama and a mansion to settle down in. Gonna live happily ever after. But this ain’t Disneyworld and you ain’t no fairy princess. Maybe, if yer lucky, he’ll call ya to snake his toilet now and then…_

Daryl shook his head hard and strode forward, trying to lose the grinning ghost tormenting him. There were other voices in his head, too, now, and he could choose to conjure those. The voice of Carol, telling him he was every bit as good as Rick and Shane. The voice of Beth, telling him he had to leave the past behind. The voice of his new friend, Aaron, encouraging him not to give up—to go after what he wanted (as though he might actually deserve it), and to tell Rick the truth.

Daryl halted again, looking up into the bare branches overhead. Rick had said a lot of things he didn’t like today—but Rick hadn’t said _no_.

_I don’t know what the hell I want—_ that was the last thing Rick said to him.

Could he wait around while Rick figured it out? Could he convince Rick that it was _him?_ What would that take?

As Daryl stood there deep in thought, the breeze shifted slightly, and with it came a new sound… and smell. His awareness returned in a flash to the forest around him. A faint rushing sound that he’d taken for moving water now sounded different borne on the damp winter wind… more like the faint roar of a faraway crowd. And the scent of wet leaves and earth became one of rot—like a graveyard unearthed.

With trepidation rising in his throat, he slowly began to follow the wind, every sense alert for danger. It smelled like an army of walkers, but the sound was odd—rising and falling and echoing in place. If there was a horde approaching, his family needed to know. If he could slip close enough to look and get away without being seen…

When he finally emerged on the lip of the quarry and peered down, the sight nearly stopped his heart. He hadn’t seen so many people in one place since that time he and Merle had tried to sneak into a Gators bowl game. Only this time they were all dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ain't over till it's over, Daryl... and it ain't over yet. Couple more chapters to go till the big finish. Sorry no nookie in this one, but shit is about to hit the fan. Please tell me you're still with me! I so appreciate all y'all reading. Thanks for your comments!


	13. Bitch ain't Singin'

“Rick, I get that somebody needs ta’ do it, but why me? Anybody can lead them walkers out—a trained _monkey_ could do it. You know I could do more good staying _here.”_

Rick hadn’t listened to him—had insisted that he accompany Sasha and Abraham to lead the walkers out of the quarry pit and away from Alexandria. Had said that he trusted Daryl like nobody else to get the job done—to execute his plan.

In the end, Daryl finally tired of arguing with Rick and gave him an I’ll-do-it-but-I-won’t-like-it glare and a nod before stalking away.

Bright and early the next morning, the volunteers were milling around during Rick’s “dry run” at the quarry when all hell literally broke loose. The ground beneath the semi-truck blocking the upper exit fell away before their eyes, and a couple thousand walkers began to stream out of the pit and stagger toward Alexandria.

Next thing Daryl knew, he was Grand Marshal of the shittiest parade ever—a slow death march down an endless two-lane road, twenty miles to nowhere. If the average person walks about three miles per hour, two thousand corpses must do maybe 1.5 to 2, Daryl figured. These undead fucks were going to cost him ten hours of his life. Ten hours vacillating between nail-biting angst and ass-burning boredom. His bike could hardly even go this slow; if he didn’t pay close attention, he could easily lose balance and tip over, maybe get pinned.

_Guess that’d liven things up,_ he thought wryly.

For the first hour he puttered along next to the car carrying Sasha and Abraham, listening to Rick’s occasional updates and the chatter over the walkies. So far, so good. Rick’s plan had been bold and risky, but they didn’t have the firepower or the manpower to attempt anything else. And doing nothing was no longer an option—that ship had sailed when that truck toppled over. After everything that had happened, Daryl had to admire Rick for having the balls to stick his neck out this way to save Alexandria.

He also had to admit his growing urge to kick those same balls. This ride was giving him plenty of time to think... After everything they’d been through and survived together—everything that had gone on between them—he couldn’t believe that Rick was willing to just walk away as if it had never happened. As if it all meant nothing. But then again, he couldn’t believe he’d been so foolish as to imagine that someone like Rick would just fall into his arms overnight and make all his dreams come true.

On the one hand, he was glad Rick had been honest about his feelings in the bell tower yesterday. On the other hand, this was no time for the man to go all wishy-washy again. Was Daryl everything to Rick? Or was he the brother and best friend that Rick happened to sleep with a few times? He’d been both in the same sentence yesterday, and it left Daryl’s head spinning.

Did Rick really want the baby mama and the mansion? _Lori and me, we used to drive through neighborhoods like this…_ Or would he be willing now to share his bed with a man—a man who wasn’t soft and pretty and would never smell like gardenias, but who would live to make him happy, and die to protect him and his family?

And where did Carl come into all this? Was Rick afraid of what his son might think of him and Daryl bumping uglies? Or would the man have the courage to tell the little shit which way the wind was gonna blow? Daryl figured Carl would probably forgive him eventually for having separated him from his father for a few weeks—but what if sleeping with Rick caused an even bigger rift?

His other line of thought was to berate himself for thinking of such silly things, when every day they were faced with new dangers. Rick was necessarily pre-occupied with keeping them all alive, and had easily slipped back into leader mode, with all the pressures that entailed. Daryl did not want to make things worse—and he had already been in Rick’s face about the necessity of bringing in new people, a point on which he and Rick did not agree.

Nor did Daryl agree that he should be out here riding _away_ from Alexandria, when all the action was closer to home. Anything could be happening farther back along the route, or even in Alexandria itself. As much as he hated the ostentatious place, it was home to all the people he loved and everything he had worth living for. It was starting to grow on him.

Rick’s voice came over the radio again, this time breathless and agitated. “Tobin! Tobin stop that horn! Light it up!”

That didn’t sound good. Heart in his throat, Daryl braked to a halt and pushed the button on the walkie attached to his jacket. “Rick, what’s going on?”

“Half the herd broke off,” Rick panted, sounding a million miles away. “They’re heading back toward Alexandria. There’s a loud noise coming from the east, and it’s not stopping…”

_Shit._ “I’m comin’ back,” Daryl replied.

“No, you keep going!”

“They’re gonna need our help!” Daryl argued.

“You gotta keep the herd moving,” Rick hollered, and it sounded like he was running. “Rest of the herd turns around now and things back there get worse!”

Daryl gritted his teeth. Continuing on was the very last thing he wanted to do right now.

“Daryl?”

“Yeah, I heard ya,” he ground out, and pulled out ahead of his flock again.

Another agonizing hour later, Daryl sighed, slowing his bike to a crawl, waiting for Sasha and Abraham to catch up. The wind was behind them, and a wave of ghastly stench rolled up on him as soon as he lost his own headwind. If he had to stay out here one more minute, he thought, he was going to blow a gasket.

“Hey,” Daryl leaned over and barked at Abraham, who rolled the passenger-side window the rest of the way down. “We gone five miles yet? Up here at this intersection, I’m gon’ spin around and head back.”

“The plan is to go 15 more,” Sasha informed him, as if Daryl hadn’t heard the plan the first time.

“The mission is 20,” Abraham reiterated. “We gotta make sure these undead fucks spend the rest of their lives feasting on crippled skunks instead of us.”

“This is far enough for me,” Daryl proclaimed, hollering to be heard over the hissing and growling behind him. “Y’all got this now—I know you can do it.”

Daryl ignored their protests, opened the throttle and rode away hard, taking the cutoff back to Alexandria. As he sped off, Glenn’s voice came over the radio, telling Rick where to intercept the wayward walkers using the camper.

Twelve minutes later, Rick was calling him.

“I’m here,” he replied, the wind catching at his voice.

“Won’t be long now,” Rick said. “They’re almost here. I’m gonna get ‘em going your way again.”

“How ‘bout that Daryl?” Sasha’s voice said sardonically. “He’s coming our way again.”

“Listen… there’s gunfire coming from Alexandria,” Rick said thickly. “We gotta have faith and hope they have a handle on it. We have to trust. We need to keep moving forward for them. We can’t turn back now ‘cause we’re afraid.”

“We ain’t afraid,” Abraham said solemnly.

“This is for _them_ ,” Rick intoned. “Going back now, that’d be for us. This is for them…”

Daryl wanted with every fiber of his being to keep flying back to town like a bat out of hell—and not because he was afraid. He knew Rick’s comments were aimed at him, and it irked him a bit. But he _had_ made a promise to accompany Sasha and Abraham, and to take the herd twenty miles out. What if Rick and Sasha and Abe got into trouble and needed him? The radio channel opened back up, and Daryl could hear static for a moment… then the sound of gunshots… then nothing.

“Rick?” he called into the walkie. “Rick?”

Rick did not answer—and Daryl braked to a stop, cut the engine. “Rick!” he called one more time. No reply. Daryl hung his head for a moment, guts churning, then decided that no matter what happened, he would obey his assigment. He had promised. THEN he would return to Alexandria. He turned and sped back the way he came—back to join the world’s absolute worst parade, while the circus was going on elsewhere.

***

Fifteen miles and several hours later, Abraham rolled down the window and hollered to him. “This is it man—twenty!”

Daryl wanted to feel relieved, but he knew things were far from over. Here they were, twenty miles out, and there had been no glimpse of Rick. No Rick, no camper, and no more communication… from anyone.

Trying to circle back to Alexandria along a county road, they entered the remains of a tiny, sagging town. If Daryl wasn’t so anxious he might have appreciated the sweet roar of his engine echoing off the brick buildings lining Main Street. With no helmet on, he could hear it loud and clear as he passed—just as loud and clear as the sudden pop and rattle of gunfire erupting from a doorway in a barber shop on his left.

Startled, Daryl ducked down and opened up the throttle, flying faster past storefronts and parked cars and lampposts, trying at once to keep his eyes on the debris-littered road and on the assailants who continued to emerge from cars and doorways ahead. What the hell? How many of these pricks _were_ there? He dared a glance or two behind him, relieved to see Sasha and Abraham still following—then realized they were being chased by one, maybe two cars that he could see in pursuit.

Daryl spotted a side-street veering off to the left and took it a little too fast; his rear tire slipped on loose gravel and he went into a slide, the bike going down and his body continuing its forward momentum along the pavement, leather jacket tearing away at one elbow until he thankfully came to a grinding halt… without striking his head. Adrenaline got him quickly to his feet again, bruises and scrapes notwithstanding, and back on the bike.

He took advantage of the motorcycle’s nimbleness to dart through a parking lot, between some tractor-trailers, and off down a lonely-looking two-lane into what appeared to be state forest. The road stretched out long and straight ahead through the trees, and Daryl realized he’d be too exposed here—so he took a quick turn onto a dirt track (being careful not to slide again) and pulled out of sight. He cut the engine and listened: all quiet. He waited another few minutes, but there was nothing, so he turned the bike around, walking it back to the pavement. A quick look north and south, then he hopped on the motorcycle and rode it across the road and into the woods on what appeared to be an old ATV trail.

Daryl figured the trail would make a loop and come out somewhere on the east side of town, where he could begin to look for Sasha and Abraham again. Would they wait for him? A pang of worry twisted his gut—what if they’d been shot, or captured? He refused to entertain the thought for long, though—those two were a couple of the toughest motherf-ers and best sharpshooters he’d ever met. If anyone could survive in a firefight, it was them.

What worried him more was what had happened to Rick in that piece-of-shit camper, and what was going on back in Alexandria. This detour was delaying him by precious minutes, and they’d already been gone for hours.

Unfortunately, it soon appeared that the detour would delay him indefinitely; after about half a mile, the dirt track suddenly grew horribly rutted and muddy, and he realized too late that the bike was becoming mired. He had to dismount before he tipped over, and try to push.

“Fuck!” he spat, nearly wrenching his back trying to shove the bike forward one last time. It occurred to him to wonder why he felt rather poorly; he stopped to look down at his shaking hands. Now that the adrenaline had ebbed, he was tired, hungry, stressed out, aching… and apparently bleeding. Blood dripped from the fingers of his right hand, soaking his glove. “Goddamn it…” he turned his sore arm to look at his elbow, noting where the leather had torn away down to the skin. He did have first aid supplies.

He let the bike tip over to lean against a tree, and bent to open his saddlebag… when a roar arose from the trail ahead. It was a loud engine belonging to a large vehicle, moving fast in his direction. Bandages forgotten, he reached to grab his crossbow off the back of the bike, then clambered out of the gulley and away from the trail. He looked around wildly—but there were no trees big enough to hide him, and no place to run to. The bike stuck in the trail was a dead giveaway. He darted into a patch of ferns, flung himself to the ground behind a fallen log and hoped against hope for the best. Taking up a defensive position on his belly and loading the crossbow, he reckoned he could at least shoot a couple of these dickheads before they saw him. And maybe there were only a couple of dickheads to shoot.

The mud-splattered SUV hove into view a moment later, slowing as the driver spotted Daryl’s bike in the road. It was a lifted Jeep Cherokee, with tinted windows and huge mud tires—no wonder it had encountered no trouble on this trail, Daryl thought. He held his breath, one eye closed, staring down his sights through the ferns at the vehicle’s driver-side door—then realized with a sinking feeling that from their vantage point so high off the ground, he could be entirely exposed. The Jeep’s engine idled for a moment, then the truck backed up slowly… followed by a roar as the vehicle suddenly turned and sped toward him, crashing over saplings and tearing into bushes as it bore down on his erstwhile hiding place.

Jumping up in a near-panic and backpedaling to avoid a toppling snag, Daryl knew he’d been had. The Jeep halted, and four men hopped out not fifteen feet away, bristling with weaponry.

“Drop the crossbow,” the driver hollered. “Keep your hands where we can see ‘em.”

Daryl took a deep breath and let it out slow, centering himself, his arms hanging down. He narrowed his eyes. “Why should I?”

“Well,” the driver answered smugly, “‘cause we’ll end your ass if you don’t, for one thing. And for another… that crossbow ain’t yours.”

Daryl scowled, and the man broke into a wry, humorless grin. “That there crossbow, along with your bike, the fuel in your bike, anything you got on your bike—the matchbooks and maps and bandaids and canteen and doobies in your saddlebags—your leather jacket… hell, even your misspelled tattoos… none of those things are yours.

Daryl scoffed. “Yeah, dickweed? Whose are they then?”

The man lost his smile and stepped forward. “Your property now belongs to Negan.”

No sooner did Daryl’s crossbow hit the ground, then the men suddenly set on him like hound dogs on a cornered hog. One darted forward for the bow, another feinted to grab him, but a third stepped up and punched him in the jaw, then swiped his knife. The fourth man made to hit him again, and when he raised his fists in defense, the first threw a punch into his gut, then the second kicked his legs out from under him. He dropped to the forest floor, trying to cover his head with his arms, but the blows turned to kicks, and he felt a rib crack, and he couldn’t breathe… _oh fuck…_

***

Daryl woke up to complete darkness, and wondered for a few minutes if he’d been beaten blind. He blinked his eyes and tried to shake his head, which was a mistake. Pain exploded inside his skull and he groaned inadvertently, panting until it subsided enough to bear. He tried to move his arms and legs, and slowly became aware that he was tightly bound hand and foot to a chair. Fear knotted his stomach for a moment, and his heart began to pound, but he knew he couldn’t let it get the best of him. He might be alone in the dark tied to a chair, but he couldn’t afford to feel helpless, or to wallow in fear.

His head hurt and his ribs ached; he could taste blood from a split lip. But other than that, and a gnawing hunger, he didn’t feel too awfully rough.

He extended his awareness outward, trying to gather clues to his surroundings. The air felt damp and cold and smelled mildewy. Footsteps passed overhead; he could hear muffled voices. A small animal skittered across the floor nearby.

Suddenly a door opened above and to his right, and a pool of light spilled into his basement prison, assuring him that he wasn’t sightless. He turned his head to see two pairs of boots descend the steps, wondering if one of those Timberlands had given him this incredible headache.

Daryl fixed his face into an inscrutable mask and stared down the two men as they approached. One of them was the ringleader, no doubt. He was fairly well-groomed and well-fed, his clothes in good shape. A three-day growth of beard did nothing to mar the handsomeness of his face, but his cold eyes kept that face from being appealing. Daryl wondered what he’d done before the turn. The man’s companion was a sight uglier, with long black hair, a droopy eye and a gold tooth. Guys like him had been a dime a dozen back in the day.

Ringleader set his lantern down on a workbench nearby, and propped a foot up on a stool. His friend, Fugly, just stood there holding a small stick of firewood, tapping it rhythmically against his thigh.

“So,” said Ringleader, fixing Daryl with his soulless stare, “you showed up in town yesterday with a couple of friends. They seem to have killed a couple of _our_ friends. Negan won’t be happy about that. But it will improve his mood to know where they’ve gone.” The man leaned toward Daryl. “So tell me where they’ve gone.”

Daryl snorted. “Or what?”

Ringleader sighed, ignoring his question, and reaching into his back pocket, he pulled out a handful of photos and fanned them out in front of him. It was all Daryl could do to keep his face blank—they were the snapshots of Alexandria he and Aaron had been using to recruit new people. Taken from his saddlebag.

“I’m guessing this is your neighborhood, bro? You got houses? Walls? Solar panels? This place don’t look familiar to me, and I’m sure Negan would like to pay your people here a visit. Get acquainted. Catch up with your friends, once they’re home.”

“Man, I got those off a dead guy,” Daryl muttered. “I’m lookin’ for that place, too.”

The man tilted his head to the side, and the gesture—so reminiscent of Rick—sent a chill through Daryl.

“So you’re tellin’ me you’re on the road. Outdoors. Just you and your buddies in that car roamin’ the countryside lookin’ for a crash-pad every night, huh?”

“Yeah, that’s right. An’ I got no idea where they are now.”

Ringleader smiled that smile again that never reached his eyes, and shook his head. “Man, you must think we’re pretty stupid.” He glanced over at Fugly, snorted, then suddenly Daryl’s head was snapped around by a vicious blow that left his ears ringing.

“Here’s how I know yer lyin’,” the man said to him matter-of-factly, kindly raising his voice to be heard over the buzzing in Daryl’s ears. “Number one,” and he held up a finger, “you had fuckin’ home-baked cookies in your saddlebags. And they were damn good. Number two…”

Daryl stared hard at the fingers, seeing four for a moment before his vision began to clear.

“…your hair is nice and clean, and your clothes don’t stink to high heaven. And number three, that ugly bike was assembled pretty recently, and not without power tools.”

“Now,” the man said menacingly, cracking his knuckles and glaring hard into Daryl’s eyes, “let’s try this again. Where did you come from, and where have your friends gone?”

Daryl took a deep breath and let it out slowly, feeling the resolve crystallizing in his core. This was gonna suck. But fuck it. He let his lip curl into a snarl and tossed the hair out of his eyes.

“Fuck you,” he said succinctly.

It really did suck, he had to admit. The two men tag-teamed each other with fists and firewood for quite some time, pausing only to holler questions that Daryl barely registered after a while, and certainly was never going to answer. Daryl also had to admit later that childhood abuse had given him a handy tool for just this situation, allowing him to dissociate from what was actually occurring and float off to his happy place.

So while his assailants were blackening his eyes and loosening his teeth, bruising his kidney and breaking his nose, he traveled thirty miles back to a small cabin set in a clearing in the woods, and climbed the spiral staircase to the loft with the amazing view, where his best friend lay waiting for him. He slipped into that big, warm, soft bed and burrowed into Rick’s arms. “Jus’ hold me,” he whispered. And Rick did.

Until someone grabbed him by the hair and yanked his head up again, to stare into the Ringleader’s face through his one eye that wasn’t completely swelled shut. “You hear me?!” the man was snarling, his face dark and sweaty. “I said don’t get too comfy, ‘cause we’ll be back!” Ringleader released his head with a jerk, and the two men stomped back up the stairs, leaving him in darkness again.

Daryl let his chin fall back to his chest. He was trembling, utterly spent, blood and snot and drool and cold sweat trickling in rivulets down his battered face. It hurt to take a full breath. He was pretty certain he had broken bones and other damage that would need a doctor—and Rick had just killed the last doctor he knew of.

What these pricks had in mind for him next was anybody’s guess—but he reckoned things were only going to get exponentially worse. Like fingernail-pulling, nut-crushing worse, maybe. They hadn’t even begun to get creative. And he was completely at their mercy.

His resolve not to feel helpless was slipping away.

It was so very tempting to return to that cabin and just stay there. To stop caring about what was going to happen next. To give up. He was already feeling distant… numb… it was so much better than feeling all the pain. He knew this. He’d been here before.

_So is this IT now?_ Merle’s voice asked him softly. _Yer finished? Gonna call it quits? It’s over?_

“What else _can_ I do?” Daryl whispered, through swollen, bleeding lips. “I’m fucked.”

_It ain’t over til the fat lady sings, and I don’t hear no fat bitch singin’ yet. What would Sheriff Rick think of your attitude? He didn’t leave your ass behind when the Governor made us play gladiators back in Woodbury, did he?_

“No,” Daryl breathed.

_Did he give up when you was led like pigs to the slaughterhouse in Terminus?_

“No.”

_Did he let Joe and his buddies beat your head in and treat Carl like a ten-cent whore?_

“He ain’t _here_ now. And neither are you!” Daryl hissed.

Merle laughed, smiling that smug-ass smile of his. _Yer right, I ain’t. But_ you _are. Just you. All by yer lonesome._

Daryl looked up, and his mind conjured his brother’s image perched on the stool in front of him, one leg up on the supports. Merle looked at him hard, and lifted a finger to point it in his face.

_Yer always listenin’ to other people, little bro. Doin’ what everyone else tells ya. Well right now, the only one gonna help you is YOU. And you ain’t one ta give up neither. If you was, both you and your sheriff woulda been dead ten times over by now._

Daryl sniffled.

_Did YOU give up when ya had a little girl to find? How ‘bout when ya had an arrow stuck in yer gut and a cliff between you an' the farmhouse? Did ya give up when you had a deer to drag across that goddamn ridge and your leg was tore to shit and you was freezin’ to death?_

Daryl slowly clenched and unclenched his hands, lifted his head, tried to sit up straighter.

_That’s it, brother. Stay with it. Be Zen. And listen to yer damn SELF. Hell, you always made better choices than me anyway. Your moment’s gonna come. And when it comes, you’ll know it. Just believe._

The long hours of the night passed in agonizing slowness, but the men did not return to Daryl’s prison. Instead they laughed, argued and broke liquor bottles against the floor overhead into the wee hours, when they must have finally passed out. Daryl dozed fitfully, craving sleep but continually awakened by pain and shortness of breath, his dreams tinged with vivid desperation. When he could not sleep, he found himself falling into meditative trances, during which his soul would ride hell-bent for Alexandria—the place that had become his home despite himself. He would see himself arriving and walking through the gate, and he would greet each person he loved, and everyone would be there safe and sound—Rick’s plan had worked at last—and Rick would be there too, waiting for him. He held and envisioned this scenario over and over, turning it like a gemstone to observe each facet. What would Maggie say? How hard would Carol hug him? Who would be holding Judith? How would Rick’s mouth taste when they kissed, and how would it sound when his friend told him what he most wanted to hear? Daryl polished his vision until it shone with deep joy, and when he woke again to see the grey light of dawn through the dusty windows strung with cobwebs, he knew two things.

First, that he would return to Alexandria, come hell or high water.

And second, that he would NOT be meeting this Negan sonofabitch today—nor would Ringleader, or Fugly, or their other two jackbooted friends. They would never tell another soul about Alexandria or his people. Because Daryl was going to kill them.

It was probably noon before the men dragged him out through the basement bulkhead, zip-tied his hands and feet again, and propped him, slouching, against the Jeep’s rear bumper. Ringleader walked up to him, thumbs hooked into his front pockets, and looked him over in the light of day.

“You got a high tolerance for pain,” Ringleader admitted. “I respect that. But I gotta tell ya, that was just a little warmup. Nobody says no to Negan. ‘Bout the time he’s roasting your dick on a stick and serving it to ya for lunch, you’ll be telling him anything he wants to know.  And I don’t mean any of that figuratively.”

Daryl squinted at the man through his one good eye, which seemed to be overly sensitive to light.

“So I’m gonna give ya one more opportunity to come clean to me. ‘Cause I can be a reasonable guy. Where did your friends go, and where are you from?”

“Hell,” Daryl said simply.

Daryl was bundled into the rear of the Jeep with a t-shirt over his head and hands tied behind his back, and moments later they were on the road. Heading which way? Toward Alexandria, or some other direction? He wished he knew; but he’d been unconscious when they’d arrived at this house. What he did know, was that he could hear the motorcycle driving behind them—which meant there were three men in the car with him. Fugly sat in the back seat, passenger side; Daryl could hear his voice. He could also picture the exact location of the man’s weapons on his body: the small pistol tucked inside his front left jacket pocket, the knife snug in a scabbard on his right side. He’d memorized each man this way, just before he was hooded.

Fugly was talking to someone in front, his face turned away, and Daryl used the opportunity to shift a little so that his fingers could reach inside the top of his left boot. Slowly he began to work at the duct tape that held a small switchblade against the leather; it wasn’t long before he was wriggling the blade out, his heart pounding. He had a weapon.

_Your moment’s gonna come._

He carefully and silently sliced through the plastic around his ankles, then turned the knife to free his wrists. To all appearances, he was sleeping, his head back against the rear panel, hood still in place. He grasped the knife hilt firmly in his sweating palm, behind his back.

_…when it comes, you’ll know it._

He waited. He reckoned they’d gone perhaps ten miles now.

“Jeesus, wouldja look at that…” Redbeard said from the front passenger seat. “The Wal-Mart done burnt down.”

The seat in front of him creaked as Fugly leaned to the right to look, and in one smooth move, Daryl slipped the hood off and leaned forward. His left hand, despite a broken little finger, clamped over Fugly’s mouth, and his right hand deftly and surely slit the man’s throat from ear to ear. The sound of blood splashing against the vinyl seats was louder than the man’s gurgle behind Daryl’s palm—but nobody in the front seat heard it, so engrossed were they in conversation about the Wal-Mart.

Up on his knees now, Daryl thrust his sticky, dripping hand into Fugly’s jacket and pulled out the pistol, flipped the safety, and blasted a hole in the back of Redbeard’s head, covering the inside of the front windshield instantly with blood and brains.

“Shit, what the FUCK?!” Ringleader screamed, pulling his revolver. He whirled around and fired a shot at Daryl; the Jeep swerved wildly. Daryl ducked back down in the hatchback, his broken rib feeling like a knife in his liver. The Jeep was slowing. He couldn’t let it stop. He couldn’t let them get the upper hand on him again. He checked the pistol’s clip— _shit, one bullet left._

_Just believe._

He popped up once more and aimed at the back of Ringleader’s head, but the man was watching him in the rearview and jerked the wheel; Daryl’s bullet went wild, burrowing into the dashboard, and the man turned and blasted off another shot at him, which tore through the collar of his jacket.

“Give it up, asshole!” Ringleader hollered. “It’s over!”

“Fat bitch ain’t SINGIN’!” Daryl bellowed back, and with that, he flung himself gracelessly over the back seat and grabbed Ringleader in a headlock, clamping his left arm around the man’s neck from behind with all his might, while trying to snatch his gun. Ringleader began to flail, stomping down on the accelerator in the process; Daryl grabbed his wrist, and the man dropped the gun to the floor and kicked it under the seat, then tried to elbow Daryl in the ribs.

Daryl had one good eye, and with that, he could barely see out of the Jeep’s windows, which were splattered with blood and smeared where Ringleader had tried to wipe it away. Out the driver’s side window, though, he could see the fourth man hauling up alongside on the bike, training a gun on him.

That man was the wild card. If Daryl let him get away, he would have the bike. He could have the photos. He would tell Negan about Alexandria.

Ringleader was gasping for breath, trying to keep the Jeep on the road with his left hand, and fighting Daryl with his right. The bike drew closer. That was when Daryl grabbed the steering wheel and jerked it to the left with all his might.

***

_Get up, Daryl._

The voice sounded loud inside his head, as if someone had just yelled directly into his ear. It was a female voice, though he couldn’t quite place it yet. His good eye fluttered open, and for a moment he felt very confused. All he could see was yellow grass, and a lovely, golden sunset light. He wondered briefly if this was heaven. But then he realized that he was cold, and the light was making his head pound, and there was something hissing close to his elbow.

He gasped and sat bolt upright, adrenaline blasting through him again. It was a walker—it was _the Ringleader—_ crawling toward him inch by inch through the dead grass, looking like some sort of demented marionette. He scrambled away, further down the weedy ditch, feeling his pockets for a knife and realizing the switchblade was too small to do the job.

“Fuck.”

He tried to stand up, but nearly blacked out; his knees gave way and he stumbled and fell hard on his ass. So he crawled. Crawled up out of the ditch and back toward the Jeep, where he knew Redbeard had had a hunting knife, and several guns could be found. There was the Jeep, on its side at the edge of the forest. The windshield had shattered—Daryl figured he must have been thrown out, along with Ringleader, who obviously had also been crushed by the rolling vehicle. Daryl didn’t think he could possibly feel this awful _and_ feel lucky. Redbeard dangled from his seatbelt, a large exit wound in his forehead. And there was Fugly, looking even fuglier, having re-animated in the backseat.

Just beyond the Jeep, Daryl’s motorcycle lay on the gravel shoulder—but where was its most recent rider?

Daryl spotted a revolver in the grass and stuffed it in his belt, then slithered his way into the overturned SUV, scrabbling for Redbeard’s knife, stabbing Fugly through the temple. Here was a small hatchet, there was his crossbow—must have been under the seat. He crept painfully and casted about as best he could, gathering weapons, a map, a lighter, a flashlight, and what little food and drink the men had with them. At one point he looked down between his legs—and through the cracked side window, he saw the fourth man, the rider, pinned beneath the Jeep like the goddamn Wicked Witch of the East. His face and chest were crushed under the vehicle, his lower body sticking out next to the rear tire. One baleful dead eye regarded Daryl lustily through the glass. Daryl stared down and snorted.

“Dude, I feel ya. I’m starvin’ too.”

On his knees by the side of the pavement, Daryl downed an orange Gatorade, dribbling half of it down the front of his jacket as his lips didn’t seem to be functioning. He looked longingly at the few food items he gathered, but couldn’t imagine chewing any of them... He had maybe 30 minutes of light, and a long way to travel—possibly on foot. Three walkers, drawn by the noise of the crash, shambled down the highway toward him.

He had to try the bike, and hoped against hope that it would start—and that he could actually ride. Scrabbling his way, half standing, half crawling, to where the motorcycle lay, he realized he must be crazy to think that he could actually lift the heavy bike in his present condition, never mind endure a twenty mile ride back in the dark to Alexandria. He felt like a tree splintered by a storm but not yet toppled; like a windshield shattered and laced with a thousand cracks that had somehow not broken yet, _not yet_ , but it might any minute if someone so much as touched it, or a bird so much as shit on it. Pain shot through every vein and telegraphed across every neuron in his body, and threatened with every move to overload his circuits and knock him unconscious in the middle of the road. The pain told him to crawl inside the car and lie down, curl up, go to sleep, wait for help. It told him to escape for a bit, to withdraw, to hide.

But his stubborn heart told him to go back to Alexandria.

He crouched by the motorcycle, studying it a moment, trying to catch his breath. Then he turned and put his back against the seat, bending his knees, gripping the metal. He was already shaking and sweating.

“Ok,” he whispered to himself. “You can do this. You can fuckin’ do this. You are already back in Alexandria ‘cause you fuckin’ killed four lowlife pricks and lifted this bike and drove your ass back and you’re safe an’ sound and so’s everybody else.”

_Just believe._

_On three,_ the girl’s voice said, and Daryl counted “one, two, three,” and for a moment he thought he’d pop a nut, but then the bike seemed to float up all by itself, and he managed to climb on, start the engine and roar away, leaving the walkers and four dead men in his dust.

***

Daryl arrived back in the tiny, sagging town by the skin of his teeth. He was far too exhausted and shaky to ride another twenty miles, and he knew it. He’d had to slow and stop three times when dizziness threatened to topple him, finding a signpost to lean against until his head cleared. He had no helmet and impaired vision, and a fall at nearly any speed was likely to mean his death now, he understood. Stray walkers had started to appear in the road, and Daryl wondered if they were original inhabitants, or if they’d wandered away from the herd passing through.

Just as he was beginning to consider that he _might_ have to put off Alexandria until tomorrow, he saw the Main Street door marked _DIXON_ with a big “X”.

He pulled over.

Sasha and Abraham—or perhaps Rick—must have been here. What were the odds they’d be here still? He saw no car, no camper nearby. Dismounting carefully, looking up and down the street, he shuffled up to the door and knocked twice. No reply. A cold wind had picked up, swirling trash around his feet. He’d be glad to get out of it. He turned the knob and pushed the door open, holding a flashlight in one trembling hand and a hunting knife in the other.

“Hey,” he called softly. “Sasha? Rick?” He stepped into the insurance office and closed the door behind him, then surveyed the desks, chairs, file cabinets and shelves with his light. On the desk closest to the door was a bottle of water, a knife and a note, which he squinted at with his good eye: _Gone back to A. Camper damaged and Rick gone back on foot **.** Meet you there. Hope you’re there already! S  & A_

Daryl sighed, collapsed into the chair and guzzled down the water gratefully. This wouldn’t be the most comfortable place to spend the night, but he’d slept in far worse. Flicking the light around some more, he spied a pile of red-and-white t-shirts on a shelf, and a coat still hanging on the coat rack—perhaps he could even stay warm. There were two doors on the far side of the office; a restroom, no doubt, and probably a kitchenette. This was exactly the kind of place where he and Rick often found food on their journey into DC. Nobody else seemed to think about ransacking office buildings for eats—though Sasha and Abe might have. If he could just find an overlooked can of soup, or sardines, or something else that his loose teeth didn’t need to chew, perhaps he could get enough nourishment to sustain himself until morning—until he could return home.

He pushed himself up from the office chair with a groan, and made his way slowly to the kitchen door, head pounding and vision swimming. Leaning his forehead against the doorframe, he rapped on the door with his knuckles—listened—rapped again. Nothing but his ears ringing. He turned the knob and pushed, but the door wouldn’t move. He leaned his good shoulder into it and pushed harder, and the door gave a little, opening four or five inches. Something was obviously blocking it from the other side, and his flashlight wouldn’t reveal what it was.

In hindsight, Daryl realized later that if his nose hadn’t been broken, it might have alerted him to the danger. As it was, though, he didn’t think twice about reaching his left arm around the door and feeling for a broom handle or shelving unit or other object keeping the door from opening. He couldn’t feel anything higher up, so he slid his arm down, dropping painfully to one knee, groping around the bottom of the door to see if a rubber stop had come down.

That was when it happened—a cold, bony hand wrapped around his wrist, and before he could react, pain burst up his left arm as teeth clamped down on three of his fingers. He opened his mouth to cry out, but all he could do was gasp like a landed fish and try to tear his arm away, feeling his flesh and bone give under the surprising pressure of those ghastly jaws. He thrashed on the floor, struggling in terror, until with a mighty yank, he managed to free his shredded hand and fall back from the door.

His adrenaline carried him for the next several moments, as he slammed the door shut and scuttled back like a crab, hyperventilating.

“Fuck, fuck, oh fuck I’m fucked,” he breathed, even as he wriggled out of his leather jacket, then unfastened his belt one-handed and yanked it from his pants. He began to wind it around his bared forearm, tightening it with one shaky hand, then a boot on the ground. He couldn’t make it stay snug enough.

“No, no no, shit no…” He crawled post-haste over to the pile of t-shirts and took a knife to one, his flashlight in his mouth, cutting off a strip and winding it around his arm twice, tying it as fast and as tight as he could. The bleeding in his hand slowed considerably, and he held it up over his head, trying to catch his breath.

“Oh Christ, ok, ok…”

A thousand thoughts and emotions swirled through his head, but he knew he had no time to think—only to act—if he wanted to live. Goddamn, he wanted to live. He hadn’t suffered the physical and mental anguish of the last 24 hours just to die alone in this godforsaken State Farm office—that much he knew.

He pulled the small hatchet from the loop on his right pant leg, flashlight still in his mouth, and looked wildly about for a solid surface. The floor? No, too awkward. A chair? Too soft. He climbed shakily to his feet and stumbled to the nearest desk, clearing it with a sweep of his good arm and collapsing into the chair in front of it as papers and picture frames and nameplate and pencil cup crashed to the floor.

“Ok now, Dixon,” he panted, “Yer goin’ back to Alexandria and yer gonna _live._ You got unfinished business. So yer gonna _do this shit_ and yer gonna do it _now_.”

_Wrist? No, forearm. Just above the tourniquet._ How high had the venom reached by now? He lifted the hatchet, but his right arm shook so, and he felt weak as a baby. He whimpered in terror. How could he possibly do this to himself? And what if he flinched? Or the axe wasn’t sharp enough?

In his mind’s eye, he suddenly saw Merle grinning and lifting his deadly metal contraption of a hand in an ironic salute. Wordless.

“Fuck, Merle!” he burst out. “I know yer fuckin’ laughin’ at me! Don’t laugh! Don’t fuckin’ laugh! It ain’t fuckin’ funny!”

Merle kept silent, and Daryl got really pissed.

“You fuckin’ asshole, _help me!”_ he cried. “How did you do this? How did you fuckin’ _do_ this?”

His brother smirked, shaking his head.

Daryl gritted his teeth and stood up off the chair, stretching out his discolored forearm in front of him, his ruined fingers splayed out. The flashlight on the desk lit the grim scene starkly.

“You think I cain’t do this, but yer wrong!” he hollered. “Yer a fuckin’ idiot! I’m doin’ it and _I’m goin’ back to Alexandria and I’m gonna live so FUCK YOU!”_

And in one violent motion, he lifted the hatchet high and brought it down as hard as he could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you had your seat belt buckled and enjoyed the ride. Sorry the kitten is not in this chapter, but it's a hard world for little things (didn't Hi say that in Raising Arizona?)... and for Daryl. He's got some well-deserved lovin' coming in the next (and last) installment, however. Hugs, kisses, cuddles... hell, maybe even a sponge-bath. I solemnly swear. Thanks for all the encouragement - I so love your comments! Thanks for sharing your thoughts.


	14. Job's Redemption

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Likely spoilers ahead for the episode to air Feb. 14. Proceed at your own risk!

_Pancho needs your prayers, it’s true,_

_But save a few for Lefty, too_

_He only did what he had to do…_

 

“He’s gonna be ok. He’s gonna be ok. He has to be ok. It’s… it’s alright… he’s ok.” Rick was chanting the words softly like a mantra, over and over, hovering at the end of the bed, when Michonne staggered up to his side again with her legs wobbling like Jell-o.

People came stumbling into the infirmary in twos and threes, covered in blood and reeking of rot, some crying or moaning. Some were looking for help, others looking to give help, but the room was rapidly growing crowded and noisy, the atmosphere quickly devolving into chaos.

“Oh, Christ… Oh _Christ!_ Stop… stop bleeding. Stop fucking _bleeding!”_ Denise pled—way too loudly—working desperately with gauze and small clamps on the still body lying in the bed in front of them.

Michonne grabbed Rick’s arm. “Rick… look at me…”

Rick just kept muttering, eyes wide, his gaze locked on the scene in the bed—Carl fighting for his life, his right eye socket shattered by a bullet.

“Rick, we gotta get this nasty meat poncho off you now… come on. You can’t be in here with this on. Let me help you.” Michonne tried to pull him back from the bed, but couldn’t budge him, and after a moment she took her knife out and simply slit the sheet at the back of his neck and tore it off him with shaking hands, trying not to spill more walker guts onto the floor. Wadding the mess up in her arms, she turned and walked back out on the porch, heaving it onto the lawn with the rest of the human refuse.

Standing there panting, she surveyed the grisly battlefield that had been a quiet street just two days ago. Piles of reeking bodies covered the winter-killed grass in front of the infirmary and spilled out into the road. People were standing here and there, stunned and exhausted, weapons dangling from limp arms. She could hear somebody puking. Aaron came stumbling up to the railing, his face blood-smeared but for white streaks left by the tracks of tears.

“Do you need help here?” he asked.

“Crazy in there,” she replied, but jerked her head toward the door anyway. “See what you can do.”

Tara and Eugene appeared with Carol between them, helping her slowly up the porch steps. Michonne stepped over and grabbed Tara, pulling her by the arm and taking her place next to Carol. “They need you in there,” she said to the young woman urgently. “Go!”

“I’m ok, really,” Carol was protesting. “It’s just a concussion. I just need to lie down!”

Michonne looked at her hard. “Eugene, take her home,” she ordered.

“But…”

“Just do it,” she hissed. “People in there have bigger problems!”

She was feeling shaky and shocked, but Michonne knew she had to keep her shit together. White knuckling the porch rail, she took a few deep breaths. She really couldn’t think about what had just happened… to Carl, to Rick, to Jessie and her family… didn’t have time to process it right now. The walkers might all be dead, but there was more to be done before they were all safe, and even if everyone around her was losing it, hell if _she_ was going to.

She could hear Tara’s voice inside, raised over the din. “Has anybody been bitten? If you’ve been bitten, come see me now! Clean towels are in the bottom left cupboard! Gabriel! You’re the bandage king! If you can bandage yourself Gabriel will give you a bandage! Anybody needs help with a non-life-threatening wound, line up at the bathroom door! If you’re fine and you don’t have first aid experience, go home!”

Aaron was suddenly at her side again, holding Judith awkwardly, trying not to get blood on the child. “I found her just crawling around in there… she was gonna get stepped on. Rick… he…”

“Damn,” Michonne grumbled. “Thanks…” She reached out for the baby without thinking, then drew her hands back. Poor kid had bits of gore stuck in her little blonde curls, and she blinked at Michonne with eyes full of tears, one tiny fist stuck in her mouth. Her diaper hung low. Michonne looked up at Aaron, frowning. “I can’t… listen…”

“It’s ok,” Aaron said, shifting Judith onto his hip. “I think maybe Eric would like to babysit for a while.”

Michonne’s lips tightened, but she nodded, and Aaron hugged Rick’s baby against him and disappeared.

The wall… she should make sure people were at the wall, see what needed to be done to patch the damage from the fallen tower, make sure there were still lookouts. Someone needed to do a sweep for any remaining lurkers that might have been missed inside, and put down any that weren’t truly dead.

All over town, the scene was the same—people poured into the streets and were pitching in any way they could. She wished Rick could see this. The Alexandrians swarmed over the fallen wall section like ants, tearing apart the wooden tower, rigging ropes and cables and pulleys to haul the steel panels back up into place. Tobin hollered instructions, running back and forth, and men and women alike worked frantically together in the gathering dusk. Michonne spotted Maggie and Glenn side by side, moving a section of the tower’s roof—and she couldn’t help but smile. Glenn _had_ made it back after all—one little ray of sunshine in this terrible, dark hour. She strode up to the lookout platform and called up to the figure on top.

Sasha’s face appeared over the side—another pleasant surprise.

“You’re back! How’s it look out there?”

“Still a few wandering around,” Sasha called down. “I just picked off four more. We’re pretty much in the clear, though.”

“Good! Where’s Daryl and Abraham?”

“Abraham’s doing a sweep.” Sasha’s face pulled into a frown. “You mean you haven’t seen Daryl?”

Michonne’s smile vanished. “Haven’t seen him? Wasn’t he with _you?”_

“No… we lost track of him. Thought he’d returned before us…” Sasha jogged down the steps to where Michonne stood, shouldering her weapon. Her eyes were wide. “So you’re sure he’s not here?”

“No, he’s _not_ ,” Michonne growled, glaring. Was this bitch serious? They came back without Daryl? She turned angrily on her heel and began to stride away, her mind racing, but Sasha kept up with her.

“Get back on the wall,” Michonne hissed.

“Listen,” Sasha begged, “we got attacked. Ambushed. There were two or three vehicles, some nasty characters. They chased us and we killed three of them. Daryl took off, but we couldn’t follow. He never answered his radio. We tried to look for him. We waited all night. When he didn’t track us down, we figured he’d gone back… Michonne!” Sasha grabbed her arm and Michonne finally halted, met her pleading gaze. “What do we do?”

Michonne knew that if anyone could survive out there, it was Daryl. Back at the prison, it was not completely unlike him to disappear into the woods for a couple days, then return out of the blue, scratched and bug-bitten and covered with burs like an old tomcat. But this time he was not likely to be off tracking a deer; he’d disappeared twenty miles away, at the head of a column of walkers thousands-strong, and in the midst of a hostile attack. He knew that his people were under siege, and he would be trying to return, if he was able. At best, his motorcycle could have broken down and left him on foot, or he could be trapped somewhere and hiding, waiting for the herd to dissipate. At worst, he was badly injured, captured or dead.

Whatever weird shit had transpired between him and Rick on their little vacation, and however surly Daryl had been when they’d arrived, Michonne had no doubt that Daryl would be here right now if something wasn’t preventing him.

***

With Sasha and Abraham in her wake, Michonne stepped back into the infirmary, making a beeline for Rick. He didn’t need one more thing to worry about, she knew, but he did deserve to know what was happening and where they were going.

Rick perched on the bed beside Carl, silently clutching his son’s hand and staring down at his bloody, bandaged face—and Michonne felt her heart break just a little more.

“Rick,” Abraham blurted, before Michonne could open her mouth. It was just as well; when Rick turned his face toward them, looking completely lost, she couldn’t have found words anyway. “Rick, we fucked up and left a man behind, but we intend to right that wrong. We’re heading out just before dawn to find Daryl. And find him we will.”

Rick made a noise like someone had knocked the wind out of him. “Daryl?” he finally said softly, his voice disbelieving. “You came back without Daryl?

Abraham swallowed audibly. “It was a miscommunication. We thought he’d returned without us. Michonne informs us he’s not here.”

Rick stood up to face them, anger suddenly replacing anguish in his eyes, and she wondered briefly if she’d have to break up a fight. But Rick simply said tightly, “Lemme find my AK. I’m comin’ with you.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Michonne insisted, finding her voice. “We’ll go. You need to be here, with Carl.”

Rick blinked at her, his face still hard, then glanced back at his son. “Nothin’ more I can do here for Carl. He’s gonna live or die. Nothin’ I could do for Jessie… or Sam… or…” he squeezed his eyes shut, exhaling, grasping the bed frame tightly for a moment to steady himself, “…or anybody. But maybe at least I can help Daryl.” He looked up at Michonne resolutely. “I gotta try. I’m comin’ with you. And I ain’t waitin’ for dawn.”

***

Twenty miles and an hour and a half later, they rolled into the dark and silent town with the headlights off, and coasted to a stop in front of the insurance agency office with _DIXON_ scrawled in black letters on the door.

“This is where we waited for him night before last,” Sasha told them. “We left a note inside, some water and a knife. If he’s been here, at least maybe we’ll know.”

Michonne stepped out of the car as slowly and painfully as the rest of them, feeling like all her muscles had tightened up while she sat. She unsheathed her katana, and the four of them held their weapons at the ready, watching and listening at the curb—but the whole town lay cold and quiet as a tomb.

“I’ll stand watch out here,” Sasha whispered, melting into the shadows next to the building. “You three go in.”

Abraham gestured, and Rick and Michonne followed him through the door. They stopped just inside, flashlights capturing an empty water bottle on the desk, next to the note. The knife was gone. “ _Someone’s_ been here,” Abraham muttered. “Daryl!” he called softly. “Daryl, you copy?”

No answer.

Michonne sheathed her sword again and hung it over her shoulder, the weight reassuring on her back. The three of them fanned out wordlessly, Michonne heading left, toward the back office.

Two doors appeared at the end of a short hallway, and in an open alcove to the right was another office. The doors were closed; she turned to shine her light into the office and stopped short, eyes widening. The desktop held a grisly tableau—a hatchet and part of a mangled limb in a small pool of bright, fresh blood. She stared for a moment, took a step closer. Her foot crunched on broken glass; the light revealed a shattered picture frame, pens and papers scattered across the floor.

She pulled her knife, holding it in front of her. “Someone here?” she hissed. “Daryl?”

Carefully, she stepped into the alcove and peered around behind the desk. Her flashlight revealed what appeared to be a pile of rags on the floor—with boots sticking out.

She started to call out to the others, but the words died on her lips. What if it wasn’t him? It could be a walker… _oh, God, what if…_

She gave the boot a gentle nudge—no response. Dropping to her knees, heart pounding, she pulled back the layers of t-shirts and somebody’s coat, until she could see the leather jacket, the shaggy hair matted with blood…

“Daryl,” she breathed, still afraid to feel anything resembling relief, “Daryl, c’mon…” She grabbed his shoulder and gave it a tentative shake, but he didn’t move, his body curled into a tight ball. She placed her hand on the top of his head—thank God, it felt warm—then worked her fingers down carefully to feel for a pulse at his throat. Holding her breath. _There._

“I got him!” she cried. “Rick! Abraham!”

They were there in a flash, and Michonne stepped back as the two men unfolded and lifted Daryl,  cradling his limp body between them, hauling him as fast as they could back out to the car; Rick silent and wide-eyed, Abraham exclaiming under his breath the whole way in horror.

_“Mother FUCK that’s his arm! Shit! What a pile of suck! Goddamn it! Was he fuckin’ bit?!”_

“Oh no… oh shit… oh Daryl,” Sasha lamented, touching his leg as they loaded him into the backseat.

Moments later, they were speeding back toward Alexandria, Daryl’s legs in Michonne’s lap, Rick holding the unconscious man’s shoulders and head in his arms. Michonne spread a thin blanket over him, and Abraham handed them his coat, which she laid on top.

Abraham turned on the dome light and gazed over the back of the seat. “He looks like raw meat, the poor fuck. Somebody worked him over but good…”

Michonne took one look at Rick and shushed Abraham brusquely.

In the dim light, Daryl’s face looked a bit like Rick’s after his brawl with the Governor—but worse. He was barely recognizable, swollen and cut and bruised and bloody, still oozing from gashes on his forehead, his nose a multicolored deformity ballooned to several times its normal size. One eye swelled completely shut. Then there was the bloody rag tied tightly around the remains of his left arm—which at least had kept him from bleeding to death so far. Had he cut the hand off himself, or had his attackers done it? If he’d done it himself because of a bite—the rest of his injuries might not matter soon.

Rick began to emit little snuffling, choking sounds, his trembling fingers working lightly over Daryl’s face, stroking and trying to smooth the matted hair, then caressing his chest and shoulders, then back to his face.

Michonne wrestled the first aid kit out from under her legs and thrust it at Abraham. “Find some gauze,” she ordered. Then she leaned forward to find Daryl’s pulse again, holding her fingers at his throat and her own, comparing the tiny flutterings under the skin.

“His pulse is weak,” she announced. “And he feels really sweaty.”

“He’s probably in shock,” Sasha said. “Keep him warm, put his legs up. How’s the bleeding?”

Abraham handed back a pile of gauze, and Michonne took it and leaned over to press it against the seeping cut on Daryl’s head. “Think he’s lost most of the blood he’s going to.”

Rick let out a sob, and Michonne looked up at his wan face, streaked with gore and sweat and tears, his blue eyes dark with grief. “Hey,” she said gently but firmly. “Put your fingers on this gauze here and press down. We’re not giving up.”

Rick obeyed shakily, and Michonne lifted her freed hand to touch him, try to soothe him.

“It’s all my fault,” he groaned, “everything…”

“Stop, now,” she commanded, her voice low, her hand squeezing his shoulder, “don’t go there.”

 _“I’m sorry, Daryl…”_ Rick moaned, bending over his friend’s body, and Michonne squeezed her eyes shut tight, fighting against the emotion rising in her own throat.

The car suddenly hit a large pothole, jarring everyone inside and sending small items flying. “Shit! Sorry!” Sasha exclaimed.

Daryl stirred, moaning.

Rick and Michonne stiffened, leaning close. “Daryl? Daryl? Talk to me, man…” Rick begged tearfully, grasping at his friend’s shoulder. “You hear me?”

Then came a whisper, barely audible. “Rick? ’M I gon’ die?”

Rick glanced up at Michonne, then back down at Daryl, and Michonne watched as he scraped the bottom of his barrel for a last tidbit of fortitude, wiping his face with the back of his hand, swallowing his tears and clearing his throat. Daryl’s swollen eyes didn’t open.

“No,” Rick answered softly but firmly, taking Daryl’s right hand in his and squeezing tight. “You’re NOT gonna die.”

“Feels like it,” Daryl croaked, his throat sounding full of crushed glass.

“I know, man. I know it’s bad, but… hang in there. We got you now. We’re bringin’ you home.” Rick’s voice broke, and he swiped at another tear with one hand, clutching Daryl’s remaining hand to his breast with the other.

Daryl fell quiet for a moment, then seemed to startle again. “Keep dreamin’ I’m talkin’ to the devil,” he rasped. “Y’know… makin’ bargains fer my soul…”

Michonne felt a chill flutter up her spine, and watched Rick’s face change yet again—from despair through surprise to something resembling fury. As if he were a jealous lover, and Satan himself his rival. Rick’s nostrils flared and his jaw clenched as a shudder ran through him.

He leaned close to Daryl’s ear and Michonne could just barely hear the words he ground out… “You see the Devil again, you tell that cocksucker that he cain’t have you yet. I don’t care if I have to pry his bony fingers off your soul one-by-one and kick him in the teeth. I don’t care if I have to follow you to hell and drag your scorched ass back up here by the short hairs. I ain’t ready to let you go jus’ yet. Yer _mine,_ Daryl Dixon, you tell that bastard. _I ain’t done with you and I ain’t lettin’ you go.”_

***

_December 16, 2018_

_There but for the grace of God… that’s what Gabriel said, after he somehow managed to appear out of nowhere wearing a gut-poncho and wielding a machete, and saved my ass from the crazy fuck who was dragging me through a mosh-pit of lurching corpses. I suppose he was referring to our singular luck in being left alive once again, but all I could think about was WHAT GRACE? If God had any grace left to hand out, maybe I wouldn’t be treating five more bite victims in the living room, and trying to keep Rick’s son and best friend alive in the kitchen._

_Carl Grimes had a bullet pass through his eye socket earlier today, damaging the zygomatic bone and exiting his temple, but, it appears, not entering his skull. So ok, maybe a little grace was involved. It was all I could do to stop the bleeding, and he’s going to lose the eye, but it appears the kid is going to live. His vital signs are promising, considering. He’s on an IV drip for fluids, and I gave him a dose of_ Metronidazole, 500 mg, and Penicillin G, 5 million IU.

 _No sooner had I stabilized Carl and checked on Tara and Rosita’s treatments for the bite patients, than Daryl Dixon landed in my other bed. No rest for the weary. His variety of injuries was impressive, and nothing I was prepared to deal with. An amputated hand and partial forearm—had to clean and irrigate it with saline, and applied_ Polyvidone-iodine 10% solution. _Started bleeding again, but managed to get it under control. Then started him on an IV with fluid,_ Penicillin G, 8 MIU, and Metronidazole, 1,500 mg. _Need to remember to repeat every 8 hours. Packed the wound with dry gauze for now and hoped for the best. Treated him for gashes and scrapes to the head (18 stitches) and a road rash on right elbow. Then reset his broken nose, with help from Abraham, who has big hands (and isn’t squeamish), and said he’d done it before. Clavicle on left side appears to be broken, and bruising on left side of ribcage probably indicates fractured rib(s) too; I’ll try to wrap him tomorrow. His head injuries are worrisome, and he hasn’t regained consciousness; not sure what our options are if he shows signs of edema. I’ve put him on oxygen, to better his odds. Oh, and I’m dosing both patients with ketamine for pain, and to keep them quiet._

_Rick appears to be in mild shock, but Michonne is with him right now, and I’ve asked her on the sly to make sure he stays warm and eats and drinks. About all I can do._

_I’ve got a couple guys on guard downstairs, and I’m going to bed for a few hours now, but no curling up with Outlander tonight for me—I’ll be reading up on eyeball removal and closing an amputation.    -_ _Denise Cloyd_

***

Rick shifted in the chair and peered over his shoulder; Michonne had fallen asleep with her head down on Carl’s bed, holding his hand. A pang of guilt knifed him in the belly—it should be him there. But for now it wasn’t. He was at Daryl’s bedside, and he couldn’t bring himself to leave. He lifted the ice bag from Daryl’s cheek and felt the bottom of it—not even cold anymore. Setting it down on the bed, he leaned over Daryl and pressed his cheek to his friend’s forehead for the umpteenth time. Still no fever—maybe he had taken the arm off in time. Thank God…

He sat back again and sighed, glowering. _Thank God? Really?_ Was he thanking God that his best friend had been beaten within an inch of his life and bitten by a walker and God knew what else but cut his own arm off in time to keep from turning into the living dead? Or maybe he would turn but at least they’d found him, and now Rick could share his final agonizing moments and hope he’d wake up for a moment to say goodbye—was he thanking God for that? Was he thanking God that he and Carl had survived the attack, because the walkers had been distracted by more helpless victims? Was he thanking God that Carl had been shot in the head and would lose an eye, but might not be brain damaged and would probably live after all?

Finding things to thank God for was like grasping at tiny straws anymore. Rick felt like Job, sackcloth and ashes included.

He could understand if it was him in the bed, given his karma. But why Carl? Why Daryl? Was it about them—or him? Increasingly, he had the feeling that it was the latter. That somehow he’d brought this all upon them. Had he fucked up God’s instructions like Moses and condemned his people to wander 40 more years in the wilderness? Had he denied his destiny, like Jonah, and brought a storm’s wrath down upon his ship? Or, as with Job, was it all just a cosmic bet between God and Satan that was testing his faith and fortitude—and killing everyone who loved him?

Rick squeezed his eyes shut, felt a wave of fury rising inside his chest. “You got a sick sense of humor,” he hissed out loud. “But I get the damn joke. I tried to kill my own son. I thought I could live without Daryl. Now you’re gonna show me the error of my ways…”

He shoved himself out of the chair and stood up, striding blindly across the room, a burst of outrage at the Almighty once again shattering the cocoon of numbness he’d begun to spin. A paperback book on a low shelf caught his eye— _The Healing Power of Prayer—_ and he leaned down to snatch it and in one wrenching motion, tear it in half. He flung the pieces to the floor at his feet.

“You want me to learn my lesson, I’ve _learned_ it,” he ground out, shaking with emotion and glowering at the floor without seeing. “Fuck, I _get_ it! Life is precious! Michonne, Glenn, they said these people here, they’re all my people. I see it now. I fucking get it. They all came out to help us. They’re out there now. They _all_ deserve to live. Jessie and Ron and Sam… they deserved to live…”

He spun around and stared at the two men lying there before him. “ _They_ deserve to live too, then,” he growled. “More than anybody. More than me…”

He stood there trembling with clenched fists until his rage crested, and now he could feel it ebbing away, growing distant, and leaving in its wake a dreary mudflat of sadness that stretched endlessly into the distance.

Rick walked slowly back over to Daryl’s bedside, took his friend’s big right hand in his own and squeezed it tight, pressing it to his face as he collapsed back into the chair. Images of Daryl played like a movie on the inside of his eyelids the moment he closed his eyes—riding Merle’s chopper back through the prison gate and giving him a saucy little smile… holding tiny Judith… carrying Beth from the hospital… tied to that tree across from him on the knoll… gazing up at him with those deep blue eyes as they made love in the loft.

“I want to live, too” he whispered softly, “…but I don’t know how to live without Carl… or without _him…_ So you can stop now, Lord, please. Please… If you want me to beg, I will… please.”

“Hey,” a soft voice said behind him, and he felt gentle hands on his shoulders, “Hey. Rick, it’s gonna be ok.” Michonne squatted down next to him and pulled him into a hug, and he melted against her, burying his face in her neck, beyond tears.

_***_

_December 17, 2018_

_Well, we’ve gone from Civil War medicine back in time to the Middle Ages, now. Maybe we’re even talking B.C. About 5 am, Daryl Dixon had the first seizure, and I woke up to Rick screaming like a madman. I think everyone on the street woke up, except Carl and Daryl. Lacking a handy MRI machine, I made the diagnosis that his brain had to be swelling, or there was fluid creating pressure—and we were going to have to do something quick, or lose him. Rosita and I talked, then she disappeared for a while—and came back with Eugene. Apparently he’d been reading a book on medieval medicine, and suggested I look up trepanation—otherwise known in my textbooks as decompressive craniectomy. Long story short, ‘cause I’m fucking exhausted, we drilled a hole in a guy’s skull today, and damn if it didn’t work. Those old-time quacks were onto something. The excess fluid drained, the seizures stopped and his vital signs improved. No fever. Upped the Penicillin to 12 MIU. Hope you like your new haircut, Daryl_ _. Eugene says that ancient people used to wear their skull coins like beads around their neck for good luck, but that we should probably put it back when he improves. I guess I’ll leave that up to Daryl._

_\- Denise Cloyd_

***

Twenty-four hours had gone by—24 sleepless hours that felt like a week. They had forced some food into him, and Rick had finally acquiesced to showering, after Denise told him she couldn’t keep holding her breath around him. He’d gone back and forth between Carl and Daryl all day; a number of people had offered to keep vigil for him, but he couldn’t imagine leaving the sickroom—if something happened and he wasn’t there, he’d never forgive himself.

It was late afternoon and darkness falling again when he woke from a light doze in the chair. He watched Denise take Carl’s blood pressure and check his IV, adding some more antibiotics. She repeated the treatment on Daryl, checked the dressing on his arm, then gently laid it back across his chest. “They’re both troopers. They want to live. But you knew that.” She cocked her head, gave him a tired smile. “How you holding up?”

Rick sighed. “I’ll make it,” he said dully.

She gathered up her cuff and bandages, gazing at her patients. “I asked Tara if she’d bathe them tonight. They smell like road kill and I’m just… I’m worried about infection…”

“I’ll do it,” Rick interrupted.

“You don’t need to, you look…”

“No, I’ll do it.”

So Tara and Denise brought him a basin and a bucket of steaming water, and an empty bucket for dirty water, and some cloths and disinfectant soap and towels, and Rick stood there in front of Carl and just gazed at him for a few moments. He knew Carl would be mortified by this if he were awake.

“Sorry, big guy,” he said softly. “But what you don’t know won’t hurt you.”

He bared his son a bit at a time as he worked, and quickly found himself shocked by how Carl had changed. Obviously the boy’s voice had deepened, he’d grown a few chin hairs and shot up like a weed this year—all that had been the object of much discussion, speculation and teasing amongst his people. But Rick had not seen his boy’s body naked since… God, since Lori had stopped bathing him at age eight or so. In his mind, Carl was still pale and hairless and soft with baby fat—now, here he was long and lanky, with hair under his arms, sprouting on his chest, and—holy hell!—curling between his (hairy) legs. And when had that cute little-boy willy turned into something that belonged on a man?

Rick blushed violently, but finished his business and covered Carl back up carefully, pulling the blankets to his chin. Maybe he should have let Tara bathe Carl… he suddenly felt as if he were privy to deadly secrets. As if he’d seen his own mortality. As if he’d just aged twenty years.

He shook his head at his own foolishness, and bent to kiss Carl on the cheek. “Love you Carl. Now keep it in yer pants,” he whispered in the boy’s ear.

Rick turned his attention next to Daryl. If he started with the cleanest parts first, he’d have to start at the bottom. Baring his friend’s pale feet, he began to wash them gently—then with more firm movements, as he remembered how ticklish Daryl was. When Rick had tickled him during a playful moment in the loft, it sent Daryl into paroxysms of thrashing and kicking that made him actually jump out of the bed. He smirked at the memory, and began working his way up Daryl’s left leg; his smile fading when he encountered the first of many dark purple and red bruises that flowered all over the man’s body. Gently bending Daryl’s leg at the knee, Rick rubbed the warm, soapy cloth along his skin, swiping carefully over the angry bruises. He remembered the texture of the skin inside Daryl’s thigh—so surprisingly soft against his fingertips, the hair silkier than his own coarse curls. Daryl’s leg felt heavy and warm, the muscles relaxed, belying the strength that Rick could recall feeling when Daryl’s knees gripped his ribcage and his ankles locked together at the small of Rick’s back.

Rick stepped back from Daryl’s body, his hands falling to his sides, his jeans suddenly uncomfortably tight. Shouldn’t he be ashamed to think about Daryl this way now? Here the man was helpless, unconscious and gravely injured, and Rick was practically feeling him up. Rick took a deep breath and willed his mind to stop wandering, then skipped over Daryl’s pelvis, in favor of washing his torso next.

Rick covered Daryl’s legs, then bared his upper body, his heart falling again at the sight of the taped ribs, angry bruises and… oh Christ… the missing hand. The damaged arm lay folded on Daryl’s chest.

Every time he saw it, he flashed back to Jessie… to Sam… to Carl’s terrified cry, and their screams, and the feeling of the hatchet in his hand. Would he have that reaction forever? Was this another of the Almighty’s cruel jokes? He knew he had to stop and file that thought away under Things to Deal with Later—a large, messy pile in his mind that could probably fill a dumpster at this point. He took another deep breath, and another, until the anxiety faded and he felt he could continue. He didn’t want to do this full of angst.

Rick continued his ministrations, this time letting his mind wander to deeper thoughts as he tenderly washed the blood and sweat and grime from Daryl’s chest, stomach and armpits, then worked his way carefully down the battered arms. No, he didn’t want to do this stressed out; he wanted to do it with love.

Up in the bell tower, Daryl had been trying to tell him that he loved him—Rick could see that now. He’d been feeling so overwhelmed, so pressured by events, that Daryl’s request to be loved back just seemed like another demand; and somewhere along the line, he’d taken for granted that Daryl made no demands, and perhaps even had no needs. He’d been taking Daryl for granted for a while now; so much so that when Jessie turned those sad hazel eyes on him the night Daryl didn’t return, he entirely forgot their conversation in the tower…

He pushed the thought of Jessie away again. There was nothing more to be done for her…

But Daryl… he could make it up to Daryl. He _would_ make it up to Daryl. Because the thought of Daryl leaving him now seemed unbearable—as unbearable as the thought of losing Carl or Judith.

Rick washed and rinsed Daryl’s right arm slowly and thoroughly, massaging his shoulder, his biceps, his forearm, and scrubbing the blood and dirt from his hand, until the skin was rubbed red, but clean. Then he took the towel to it, drying between each finger.

“I said I didn’t know what I wanted,” he murmured to his friend, his brother, the only man he’d ever slept with… “but I know it now. I hope I ain’t too late. You know how I’m slow to come around. I hope you still want it too.”

Rick kissed the hand and laid it down gently atop the blankets.

Denise had said to stay away from the other arm, and his head, but Rick took a fresh, damp cloth nevertheless and worked some of the blood out of Daryl’s matted hair, as he’d done with Carl, careful to keep away from open wounds. He ran his fingers through the dirty strands and laid them smooth against the pillow.

Rick sighed, then, and biting his lip, he pushed aside the coverings over Daryl’s hips. Daryl, like Carl, had been catheterized, and the sight made Rick cringe, remembering having to tug the plastic tube out of his own dick when he awoke alone in the hospital—what felt like a hundred years ago. Taking the warm cloth, he carefully cleaned Daryl’s privates, swiped as best he could up the crack of his ass, then tossed the rag back in the bucket. It made him sad to touch Daryl this way—not something either of them were enjoying—and he hoped fervently as he gathered up the cloths and towels that this would not be the last time he touched Daryl’s naked body.

Slumping in the chair again, he felt the weight of his exhaustion settle on him like a lead blanket. He’d been up for how long, now? He looked longingly at the beds—wanting to sleep so bad he could taste it. It occurred to him to get in the bed with one of the men. It would be tight, but perhaps having another warm body close would be comforting to one of them. He couldn’t just sleep all night with one, though—that hardly felt right.

A few minutes and a pulled muscle later, he had both the beds pushed together, and he crawled up in between the two men with a spare blanket. He hugged Carl, and kissed the cheek that still felt baby soft to him, after all. “Goodnight, Carl,” he whispered, “I’m gonna be right here.” Then he turned and snuggled up close to his friend, winding an arm around him gently, and nuzzling his face into Daryl’s warm shoulder. “’Night, Daryl,” he breathed. “I’m here for you, too. Right here.”

***

_December 18, 2018_

_Decided to back Carl and Daryl off the ketamine in the hopes they would wake up and eat today. I really didn’t want to try to intubate them to feed them. Once again luck (grace?) was on our side—and now I have three grumpy and uncooperative men in the kitchen instead of one. The boys were none too happy about the pain, but we knocked it back some with Percocet, 7.5 mg every 6 hours. Somebody around here must have a joint or two squirreled away, which would probably help Daryl eat better and relax a little more, now that he’s awake. I’ll be asking around tomorrow._

_I could use a hit or two myself. Two of the bitten, Carla Jackson and Paul Devreaux, passed away in the night, and were taken care of quietly by the guy on guard. Todd Coombs died this afternoon. I expect to lose the other two by tomorrow. It’s horrible to say, but I can’t wait—I’m tired of dreaming about vampires in the cellar and waking up in a sweat._

_Was rather surprised on my 3 am rounds to find that Rick had pushed the beds together and was sleeping in between his son and Daryl. I woke him and told him to get up, that it wasn’t safe, but he just growled at me like a bear and rolled over. I took everybody’s temperature to make myself feel better, then woke up Tara and made her sit in the kitchen the rest of the night. When I returned at 5 am, Tara wore the biggest shit-eating grin—Rick was hugged right up to Daryl, holding his hand on top of the blanket. Pretty cute, and also pretty interesting, we agreed.       -_ Dr. Denise

***

Rick woke late the next morning, something disturbing him and hauling him up from what felt like a very deep dive into sleep’s ocean. Groggy, he slowly opened his eyes and focused on Daryl’s face turned toward him— _Daryl’s eyes,_ looking into his. Daryl was touching him, brushing the backs of his fingers lightly over Rick’s four or five-day growth of beard.

“Damn, ‘Squatch,” Daryl breathed. “Y’look like shit.”

Rick just blinked at him for a moment, then the absurdity of Daryl’s words struck him and he barked out a laugh. Daryl made a grunting noise.

Rick caught his hand and held it tight. “Are you in pain? You need some water?”

“Yeah.”

Rick almost skipped to the sink, coming back with a glass of water and a straw, then propped a couple pillows behind Daryl’s back, lifting the man carefully to sit up a bit. He climbed back into the bed beside Daryl and held the glass for him, putting the straw between his still-swollen lips. “Sip slow,” he instructed. “It’s been a few days.”

Daryl concentrated on drinking slowly for a few minutes, then closed his eyes and relaxed back into the pillows. “Was havin’ the weirdest dreams… people drillin’ holes in my head… an’ you touchin’ my junk in my sleep,” Daryl opened an eye, quirking an eyebrow at him, and Rick tried not to flush. “An’… this…” he lifted his left arm off his stomach and stared at it. Rick felt his stomach drop. “Damn,” Daryl said softly. “Was hopin’ this was a dream, too.”

“It’s gonna be ok,” Rick said quietly. “ _You’re_ gonna be ok. That’s the important thing. Eugene, he’s… he’s already coming up with something for you to use…”

Daryl lifted his good hand and waved Rick off, stopping his words mid-sentence. Turning his head away, the man stared out the window for a few minutes, and Rick realized he was trying to hold it together—trying not to cry.  “It was stupid,” Daryl finally whispered. “Such a dumbass mistake…”

Rick felt a powerful urge to make it better, to touch him and tell him it didn’t matter, but he knew that wouldn’t help right now. “Carl…” he said softly, “he’s right here, too. He lost an eye.”

Daryl turned back to him, and suddenly seemed to notice Carl for the first time, though he was lying asleep just a couple feet away, the beds still pushed together. “Shit,” he whispered. “Rick… I didn’t know.”

“How could you? It’s ok… you’re both with me and you’re both gonna be ok. That’s all I care about. We’re all gonna make do.”

“Rick, what happened here? Everyone else ok?”

“Yeah,” he said softly. “Our people are ok. Thanks to you, and Sasha and Abraham. We’ll talk about it more another time.” He pasted a weak smile on his face and patted Daryl’s leg, then held the water for him to drink again.

Daryl sipped slowly again for a minute or so, then stopped and grimaced. “Mouth tastes like I licked a walker,” he complained.

“Breath smells like you ate one.”

Daryl gave Rick a narrow-eyed squint. “Fuck you.”

Rick laughed again. “I wouldn’t kick you outta bed over it.”

Daryl just kept squinting at him, his expression unreadable, and Rick suddenly felt very uncomfortable.

The awkwardness of the moment was relieved by a light knock on the kitchen door—Carol stepped inside without waiting for an answer, and her face lit up when she saw Daryl.

“There you are, Sunshine!” she exclaimed, setting down a container on the stove, then coming to his bedside. “You’re looking so much better!” She bent and kissed his forehead, gave his hand a squeeze. Rick noted she looked tired, but she seemed well enough.

“I brought you a couple things. I got my hands on a wild turkey carcass and made some wonderful broth for you and Carl. _And…”_ she then reached under her coat and produced, with a flourish, Daryl’s kitten.

“I thought we’d lost him, ‘cause he disappeared for a few days when the walkers came in. But last night, there he was at the back door, howling like a little banshee.”

Daryl’s mouth quirked a little, and he reached out a hand and took the animal from her, settling it down on his chest. The cat crouched and immediately began to purr loudly, kneading the blankets over Daryl’s sternum. Daryl scratched its ears gently. “There ya go, Swee’Pea,” he murmured.

Carol pulled the chair around to sit on Daryl’s other side and leaned forward, her face growing serious. “Daryl, who did this to you?” she asked, getting right down to business.

Daryl’s face pulled into something resembling a scowl, and he closed his eyes. There was a long silence, then finally he answered, “I dunno who they were. Some guys. ‘Bout ran me down… tied me up in some basement an’ worked me over. They found the pictures… wanted to know where this place was.”

“You didn’t tell them,” Rick murmured, his heart tightening in his chest.

“Fuck no, I didn’t tell ‘em!” Daryl burst out, glaring at Rick again. “Why d’ya think I look like this?”

“Daryl… I didn’t mean…” Rick started.

“It’s ok,” Carol soothed, pulling Daryl’s attention back to herself. “Of course you didn’t tell them. What do you remember about them? Did they have the W’s on their foreheads?”

“Naw, they…” Daryl’s voice faded, and he closed his eyes again. “They was nothin’ special. I never saw their camp. But they worked for some guy… he sounded like bad news. Can’t remember the name...”

“You’ll remember. Give it time,” Carol said.

“Maybe it don’t matter,” Daryl muttered. “They ain’t comin’ here.”

“How do you know?” Rick asked. “Maybe we should go after them and take ‘em out.”

Daryl opened his eyes and looked hard at Rick. “You can’t.”

Rick’s eyebrows shot up. “Why not?”

“’Cause I killed ‘em. All four of ‘em.”

***

On her way out the door, Carol pulled Rick out onto the porch for a ‘breath of fresh air.’ “Listen,” she told him. “It’s time you came out of the infirmary and talked to people. Deanna’s gone. They need a leader. Maggie and Michonne have been filling in, but they need to hear from you.

Rick sighed, squinting against the sun; down the street, he could hear the racket of a nail gun. When had all the walkers been removed from the lawn?

“There’s a funeral service tomorrow afternoon,” Carol said gently. “For everyone we’ve lost the last few days. You should come, then talk to everyone afterward. They’ll all be there.”

Rick’s heart constricted inside his chest, a cold feeling of dread clamping down. “Dunno if I’m up for that,” he murmured.

Carol touched his arm softly, but her mouth was set in a grim line. “We all have to do things we don’t want to, Rick. _Not_ showing up would be a mistake.”

***

Rick’s worst fears came true during the funeral—well, almost. No one asked him to stand up and speak about the deceased, but that was probably because the minute Gabriel mentioned Jessie and her family, he began to sob uncontrollably. He spent the rest of the service hunched in the back row of the chapel hoping nobody heard or noticed him gasping for breath, his nose running into his beard. He could only be grateful that Gabriel hadn’t witnessed what had actually happened to the woman and her two sons—what Rick and Michonne had done so that he and Carl could live. Head bent and hands covering his face, he quietly acknowledged his desperate deed, and begged for Jessie’s forgiveness. She and her children hadn’t deserved what had befallen them. He wished things could have been different. He hadn’t known what else to do. If only he hadn’t come on to her so strong, perhaps she would not have been there that day… Perhaps… If only…

Ninety minutes later, despite his reddened eyes and nose, he got his shit together and stood up tall before the people still assembled in the chapel. He looked at Carol, and she nodded at him gravely.

“I’m sorry for the lives that were lost this week,” Rick began humbly, “and for the people who were injured. I accept my share of the responsibility for it. But as Jessie said, this is what life looks like now. We do our best, and our best isn’t always good enough, when there are so many forces against us. Quarries collapse. Walls fall down. Dead people walk. Living people die.”  

He looked around at the faces turned up towards him—some beloved, and some he barely knew. He thought of Carl and of Daryl lying back in the infirmary. If they were going to live—if they were ALL going to live, and live together—they needed a future vision to live for, to work toward.

“What I’m truly sorry for,” he continued, “is my attitude. I’ve been going at this all wrong. I’ve had an ‘us and them’ mentality—as many of you know. I thought that smaller was better. That the little family I arrived here with was all the people I’d ever need. But after seeing how you people pulled together—how you worked with us to lead the walkers out of the quarry… how you left the safety of your houses to help your neighbors in need—no matter who they were… how you’ve been working together to rebuild this place… my attitude has done a 180. We’re going to make this place better, stronger and more secure than ever—together. And the more good people we can find, the better, stronger and more secure we’ll be. We’re going to meet Friday afternoon at 3 pm right here to discuss our next steps. I want all of your ideas. Now that Deanna’s gone, I also want to start a council. We’ll have six people making day-to-day decisions on running this place—and they won’t all be my people. Please consider volunteering.”

***

Leaving the chapel, Rick felt a renewed energy and a hope that he hadn’t expected, or felt, in a very long time. He spied Morgan striding off ahead across the lawn, and jogged over to catch up with him. Morgan turned and smiled, and they fell in line together.

“I liked what you said in there.”

“Thanks for sayin’ so. Morgan, listen, I got a favor to ask.”

Morgan quirked an eyebrow, listening.

“Would you teach me to do what you do?”

“You mean with the staff?”

“Yeah, and… and whatever it is that goes with it.”

Morgan stopped and turned to him, his face serious. “Why, Rick?”

“Well… ‘cause last I saw you in King’s County, you were a different man. You were somebody I couldn’t recognize. The world had gotten to you. But now… you found Morgan again. You’re back to that guy who took me in off the front step and gave me a can of soup when you didn’t have to. Older and wiser, maybe—but you’re still that guy. I wanta know how you found him.”

“There somebody you’ve lost?”

Rick sighed and nodded, gazing into the distance. “Me.”

They started walking again, more slowly this time. “Y’know, a few months ago, a friend told me somethin’ on his deathbed,” Rick said. “He told me ‘Nightmares end. They don’t have to end who you are.’ Well, I’ve been fighting my way through this nightmare, but somewhere along the line, I lost myself. I’ve done stuff I can’t understand or undo, my head is full of crazy shit, and I don’t know who Rick Grimes is anymore. If I’m going to have hope for the future—for this place, my kids, my family… all these people… then I need him back.” Rick turned to Morgan. “You and I don’t always see eye to eye about things. But I respect you, and I’d like to learn what you know. Can you help me?”

Morgan smiled. “I think you can help yourself. But I’m happy to share what I’ve learned, Rick.”

***

Days passed slowly, then weeks. Daryl and Carl came through their follow-up surgeries with flying colors, and Tara painted Denise a big “The Doctor Is In” sign to hang on her door. Carl came home first, then Daryl, and Rick and Michonne set him up with a daybed in the den, so he could have a little more privacy.

Rick assumed the mantle of leadership that he’d worn before, taking on Deanna’s role as well, and began spending his days planning and supervising and helping with the rebuilding and reinforcement of Alexandria’s defenses. Each day, though, began with an early morning session with Morgan and their Bo staffs. Breath steaming in the chill air, they would practice strikes and stances and spar with each other in the backyard, always ending with a short meditation, then coming in for a cup of tea.

If Daryl could get up that early, he would watch them out the window. He wished he had the energy to join them. His recovery felt frustratingly slow, however, and his days short, as he spent most of his time sleeping. He was plagued for weeks by headaches, fatigue, dizziness and fuzzy brain, as well as the soreness and stiffness he expected from his bumps and bruises and fractures. He found he could not concentrate on a book or a magazine, and simply entertained himself for many days just looking out the window, the grey kitten curled in his lap. Or watching Judith play quietly on the living room floor, if Carol was puttering around the house. Sometimes he felt a crushing sadness.

Around lunchtime each day he often found some strength, and he began taking his crossbow down into the basement, where he made a target from some boxes, and could practice loading and shooting the weapon with his new handicap. At first he wanted to throw it across the room, and he could only handle it for a few minutes; but slowly, he improved and adapted to using it one handed, figuring out how best to use his left arm. As his power of thought returned, he began to imagine what kind of device he might find most useful attached to the arm. If nothing else, he was determined not to be a burden to anyone—he would learn how to defend himself again, and hope he could one day help defend Alexandria.

Carl spent a lot of time hanging around listening to music, not saying much, which (if Daryl remembered correctly) was just how a 15-year-old was supposed to act. Daryl knew Carl had forgiven him one day when they both sat at the breakfast bar, Daryl scratching at his kitten’s ears as it lapped at the bottom of his soup bowl.

“So why’d you name him “Sweet Pea?” Carl asked, his mouth full.

“Swee’Pea,” Daryl corrected. “Swee’Pea was Popeye’s baby in the comic.”

“Oh,” Carl said thoughtfully. “So does that make you Popeye the Sailor Man?”

Daryl lifted his right arm and flexed his bicep. “Do like me some spinach.”

Carl chuckled. “Well, I got an eyepatch now—lemme know when you get your hook and we’ll find a sailing ship to commandeer. Go pillage some booty. Arrrrgh.”

Rick made a point of returning to the house at dinnertime each day and eating with him and Carl, Judith, Michonne and Carol. Sometimes they had guests join them. In the evening, when Judith had been put to bed, Rick sat with Daryl in the den, and they talked about the day: how construction was coming, who said what, where they would work tomorrow, how many walkers had been seen, when the next supply run would go out. Rick asked Daryl for input on his plans and schemes, even though some evenings Daryl could barely remember his own last name. But he appreciated the sentiment. It reminded him of their days in the prison. Rick asked Daryl how he felt each day, and Daryl usually lied, but Rick probably knew that. They talked, little by little, about what had happened to Daryl. And about what had happened to Rick and Carl and Michonne, and Jessie and her sons. They talked about the man out there somewhere whose name Daryl still couldn’t remember—the man who was now inhabiting both of their nightmares.

Sometimes, after they talked, Daryl was just tired and wanted to sleep; so Rick said goodnight and left him, returning upstairs to the room he shared with Carl. Other times, Rick read to him awhile from _Lonesome Dove_ , and they would both lie back against the pillows on the daybed, bodies brushing at arms and thighs; Daryl would lose himself in Rick’s deep, soothing voice, while the cat purred like a Harley on top of his chest. As the weeks passed, Daryl began to yearn for more—though he was afraid that Rick might not feel the same. When he couldn’t stand it, sometimes he would rub one of Rick’s shoulders, or ask Rick to massage a sore spot for him.

One night, he turned to Rick while he read, lifted a hand to his face and kissed him tenderly. Rick smiled shyly at him, blushing a little. “Thanks fer everything you’ve done for me,” Daryl said to him.

“Wish I could have done more,” Rick murmured, his eyes wistful.

“Maybe you _can_ do more…” Daryl leaned in again to kiss his friend, and to his delight, Rick responded and kissed him back, sliding an arm around him. They slid down against the pillows, bodies pressed close, and necked for a few pulse-pounding minutes like a couple of teenagers at the drive-in, until Daryl heard feet coming down the stairs.

Rick untangled himself and sat back up nonchalantly, picking up the book again, leaving Daryl blinking up at him from his pillow.

“Guess you’re feeling like your old self again,” Rick said quietly with a little smirk, as soon as Michonne had gone into the bathroom, “Gimme a few more days. I’ve got some ideas.”

And with that cryptic sentence, Rick stood up and left, giving Daryl a parting pat on the knee.

***

All Sunday afternoon, Daryl listened to the commotion upstairs; when he climbed to the landing to see if he could help, he was shooed back down. Glenn had come over, and he and Rick and Michonne were dragging furniture around, some of it heading up to the unfinished third floor room—which Carl finally informed him was to be his tonight. The boy was effusive.

Daryl finally got irritated enough to leave the house, taking a walk in the sun, throwing a knife into a tree for a while, then heading over to Aaron’s garage for an hour to tinker with his bike. A crew had gone back to the town to retrieve it—he was grateful for that, and for the fact that he now had the concentration and stamina back to work on it for short periods. He’d never take his health and little joys like this for granted again, that much he knew.

That evening, after dinner, Rick vanished upstairs with Judith and never came back down. Daryl waited in the living room, taxed his brain with a couple games of solitaire, but Rick didn’t come. So he headed back to his bed in the den alone—and found a note.

_Come upstairs tonight—I’ve got a surprise. First door on the right where Michonne’s room used to be. Take a shower first.   - R_

***

Hair wet from the shower, Daryl climbed the stairs slowly, holding onto the rail, then padded silently down the hall, stopping outside the room that used to be Michonne’s. He reached for the knob, thought twice, then rapped gently on the closed door with his knuckles.

Rick’s voice inside was soft. “Come in.”

Daryl pushed the door, let it swing open, but didn’t come in. Rick had been lying down, but when he saw Daryl, he swung his legs off the bed and got up, stepping into the middle of the room.

“There you are,” he scolded gently. “I was starting to think you weren’t coming.”

Daryl’s eyes darted around the room, taking in the matching dresser and bureau, the walk-in closet, the full-length mirror, the queen-size bed covered with quilts—and Rick, wearing only a pair of soft-looking flannel pants.

Rick’s mouth curved up a little, seeing his hesitancy. “It’s clear,” he teased, “I checked it thoroughly. Even the closet,” he added, waving a hand behind him. “C’mon in.”

Daryl snorted, but stepped into the room and closed the door. He shrugged out of his vest, seeing Rick starting, then aborting a move to help him as he struggled a bit to do it one-handed. He finally got it off, then stood there awkwardly holding it, letting it brush the floor. He looked up at Rick through his bangs.

Rick simply gazed back at him.

Daryl cleared his throat. “So, uh… you want me to stay here tonight? With you?”

“Well, yeah… it’s our bedroom now.”

“ _Ours_?”

Rick grunted in the affirmative, and stepped up to take Daryl’s vest from his dangling hand. Daryl watched as Rick walked into the closet and hung it on a hanger on the right side.

“I get the left side,” Rick informed him, coming out.

Daryl just squinted at him, somehow not registering what he was hearing.

Rick’s brow quirked a little, and he stepped over to the dresser. “You can have the top three drawers, too—‘cause I know you got a lotta stuff,” he deadpanned. He pulled out the top drawer, and Daryl could see something inside.

He walked over slowly and peered in. There was his spare shirt, pocketknife, and his cache of pilfered objects that had been in the pockets of his favorite pants. He reached in and pulled out an unopened package of briefs, which appeared to be his size. “These ain’t my skivvies,” he said softly, staring at the photo on the front.

“Yeah, well… Aaron left those for you.” Daryl turned and looked at him. “Anything I oughta know about, there?” Rick inquired, narrowing his eyes and cocking his head.

Daryl suddenly blanched. “ _No_ ,” he said defensively, tossing the package back in the drawer and slamming it shut.

Rick yanked his hand out of the way just in time to avoid a pinched thumb, and took a step back, his expression changing to one of puzzlement. “That was a joke, Daryl… Listen, are you… are you not happy about all this?”

Daryl blinked, gazed around the room again, chewing on his lower lip. “We gonna sleep…” Daryl gestured clumsily at the bed, “…together?”

 “I’d like to…”

“An’ you don’t care who knows?”

Rick snorted. “Well, I guess since we re-arranged everybody’s rooms so Carl can have his own upstairs and you and I could have this one… I guess everybody involved knows. An’ that means everybody else, by now.”

“Hmmph.” Daryl stared at the floor, clenching and unclenching his fist, his heart pounding. What the hell was wrong with him? Rick was holding his dream out to him on a silver platter, and he was absolutely terrified to reach out and take it. It seemed too good to be true. Some part of him wanted to accuse Rick of taunting him, to run away from this cruel joke before Rick could deliver the punchline—because if something seemed too good to be true then it always was, and he could not bear to find out this wasn’t true.

Rick reached out to him, and he felt the man’s hand, light and tentative, on his shoulder. “Daryl, what’s wrong?” Rick murmured. “Did I fuck up? I thought… I thought this was what you wanted. Do you not want it anymore?”

Daryl’s head whipped up, and he looked at Rick hard. “Is it what YOU want, Rick? Or are you gonna… y’know… change yer mind maybe in a couple days or a few weeks, or… or when the next pretty lady comes along? You really want this? You really want _me?_ Or you just feelin’ sorry right now and gonna try an’ make me ‘ _happy’_ like you did on the road?” Daryl was panting, agitated and scared shitless, his face flushed a high red with anger and embarrassment, but by Jesus, he was having his say. “Don’ do this unless you mean it, Rick, ‘cause I… I cain’t take it if you don’t… If you don’t mean it then I’m gonna get the fuck out right now.”

Rick exhaled hard, nodded slowly, put his hands on his hips and looked down at his bare feet for a moment. Then he took a deep breath and stepped up close, taking Daryl’s right hand between his own two and looking deeply into his eyes. Daryl stopped breathing.

“Daryl Dixon,” Rick said softly, “I realized when I almost lost you that you are the person I want beside me every day and every night. There’s no woman or man alive that’s ever gonna make me feel as safe and strong as you do. You’re my friend and my partner and we don’t even need to talk… we just get each other. You know what I need even before I do. I feel so close to you… I have from the beginning. We’re like… like two sides of the same coin. Two halves that make a whole. It finally all makes sense to me now.”

Daryl just stared, mesmerized by Rick’s blue eyes, finally managing a weak nod.

“I’ve taken you for granted, Daryl, but I’m done doin’ that,” Rick continued. Then he sighed, dropping their hands in front of them, looking back down at his feet. “I get why maybe you can’t just trust me—after everything that happened when you and I were on the road together. I know… I know I ain’t right in the head sometimes anymore. But I’m workin’ on that. Jus’ like we all are…”

“Let’s jus’ start again,” Daryl blurted.

Rick looked up at him through his lashes. “How d’you mean?”

“Forget all the crazy shit that happened—or at least try. We cain’t be like we were out there. We were desperate… jus’ tryin’ ta keep each other sane. This is different. We got walls now, an’ family, an’ food. Not that things ain’t still crazy,” and he waved the stump of his arm in the air, acknowledging everything that had transpired in that terrible 24 hours for the both of them, “But we don’ need to be animals. We can jus’ be… us.”

Rick smiled. “I’d like that.”

Daryl’s face threatened to split into a grin, and he suddenly grabbed his friend and yanked him into a bear-hug, squeezing as hard as his tender body could stand. Rick held him tight for a moment, then tucked his head and stole a kiss from Daryl’s mouth.

“Can we still be animals _here?_ ” Rick murmured.

Daryl gave his best animal growl and kissed Rick back, slipping a hand beneath the waistband of his pants to grasp the man’s bare ass.

Had Daryl been the type to mark anniversaries, he would have chosen this night as the first night of the rest of his life. He couldn’t stop smiling—not when Rick switched off the overhead light, leaving just a candle flickering in the darkness on the dresser. Not when Rick stepped out of his pajama pants and stood naked in front of him, offering himself body and soul. Not when he’d dropped his own clothes in a heap on the ground and bared all his healing bruises and bumps, stump and scars, black eyes and funky bald spot—and Rick did not bat an eye. Not when they embraced skin-to-skin, chest, belly and thighs, and kissed each other carefully but thoroughly, and not when Rick tumbled them both gently into the bed, and tucked the warm covers up around them.

Rick gazed at him and chuckled. “You keep grinnin’ like yer baked or somethin’.”

Daryl reached over and touched Rick’s stubbly face, lying on the pillow next to his. “High on _you,_ Squatch,” he murmured.

“Mmmm. I like to see your smile. How can I make that smile bigger?”

Daryl averted his eyes, shrugged a little, suddenly shy. “You know what I like,” he muttered.

Rick kissed him again with that lush mouth, slow and sweet as molasses, and Daryl nearly forgot how to breathe. “I’m gonna make love to you,” Rick murmured against his lips. “Just how you want. How d’you want it? What can I do that won’t hurt?”

“Mmm… just want _you…”_

“You got me.” Rick slid his hand up and down Daryl’s flank, cupping his backside, squeezing his thigh, pulling him close enough so that their quivering cocks could kiss and nestle up alongside each other.

Daryl moaned, fondling and kneading Rick’s ass cheeks, doing a sensual bump and grind against him. “I love yer ass, Rick,” he finally answered. “You got an adorable little butt. Talk dirty to me ‘bout yer ass.”

Rick chuckled and arched his neck as Daryl kissed and licked at his jaw. “Talk dirty ‘bout my ass, huh? Last time I did that you got all het up at me.”

“You were kinda fakin’ it then. I like it when it’s real. Jus’ tell me true. ‘Bout yer ass.” Daryl smiled slyly and gave Rick a little pinch, making him jump.

“Mmm, well I wasn’t fakin’ _much.”_ Rick kissed him again and slipped him a little tongue. “I really _did_ like it when you spanked me.”

“I didn’t like hurtin’ you…”

“It wasn’t the hurt, it was more the… manhandling. I like it when you push me around. Hold me down. I liked you takin’ control. It’s so… exciting,” he breathed against Daryl’s cheek, keeping up their slow, dirty, horizontal dance. “You’re so strong.”

“Ain’t so strong tonight…”

“I’m not planning to struggle none,” Rick whispered, “I’m just gonna lie here and quiver while you fuck me tonight. Fuck my adorable little ass.”

“ _Shit_ , Rick,” Daryl breathed, tilting his head back so Rick could suck and nip at his throat, rocking his hips forward harder against Rick’s.

“I like how you’re holdin’ me right now... so tight,” Rick breathed. “Just let go for a minute though… long enough to wet those fingers in your mouth and slide them down my ass crack. Yeah, like that. Gimme a couple of those fingers. Oh… oh fuck, like that.”

“That’s good, huh? Damn, yer a slut.”

Rick chuckled against his skin. “Just your slut, babe… Do you want me? Do you want this ass?

“Oh, Christ, yes…”

Daryl found Rick’s lips and kissed him again, tonguing him lavishly as he thrust his fingers into Rick’s opening, feeling the man rock, roll and shudder with pleasure. Soft moans and sighs poured from Rick’s mouth, driving Daryl nearly wild with lust. Wild to fuck this man he loved so into a moaning, quivering, pleading mess. Wild to make him forget every terrible thing that had ever happened to them, and between them, and just remember this—this powerful and amazing thing they created when they became one.

Rick suddenly rolled over in his arms, and pushed back against him. “Take me,” he groaned, “Fuck, I’m so ready. Fuck my ass now, please…”

Daryl raised himself shakily on his left elbow, reaching under Rick’s pillow for the lube they had stowed there, and opening it with his teeth, then greasing up his cock good.

Daryl reached out to pull Rick’s shoulders back toward him. “I gotta see you,” he panted. “I wanna kiss you.” So Rick twisted his slender torso and opened his mouth to receive Daryl’s kiss, as Daryl sank his member deep into his lover’s waiting body.

Then he couldn’t get enough—of the way Rick whimpered and cried out, grinding and bucking and rocking back against him. Of sliding his hand up and down Rick’s twitching, dripping cock, of squeezing his thigh, of fondling his pecs and pinching his nipples, carding chest hair between his wet fingers. Of the way Rick’s arm reached back to tangle fingers in his hair. Of the feel of Rick’s right ass cheek clutched in his hand as he pounded into the man. Of Rick’s tight, hot, silky depths that squeezed him just right.

Groaning loudly with the madness of ecstasy, Rick suddenly twisted away, hands reaching to grasp the sheets, the pillows, his own cock. His back arched as he pushed his ass desperately towards Daryl, seeking _moreharderdeeper._ “Ah fuck!” he cried, “keep doin’ that and I’m gonna come!”

Daryl gritted his teeth… he was almost there, too.

The bed began to squeak and thump against the wall.

Then the thumping turned to a sharp rapping, and an equally sharp voice coming from the adjoining room. The two men froze, startled. “ _RICK,”_ Michonne’s voice repeated. “What did I _tell_ you?”

“The _fuck?”_ Daryl grumbled, and Rick lifted his head.

“Sorry!” Rick called back softly. “I’ll get on it.”

“Sounds like you _are_ on it!”

Rick slumped back down on the pillows and sighed like a deflating balloon. He glanced back at Daryl sheepishly. “She told me,” Rick said quietly, “and I quote, ‘If you’re gonna get buckwild in there, you best pull that bed away from the wall.’”

A couple of minutes later, the bed was well positioned, but Daryl was not. “That was a boner killer,” he muttered, crawling back under the covers. He lay back, and felt Rick climb in next to him and slide up close, taking Daryl’s soft cock in hand. “Dunno if it’s comin’ back, Rick.”

Rick growled in exasperation. “You know I ain’t ashamed of this,” he breathed. “I ain’t ashamed of _you._ You ashamed of me?”

Suddenly moved by Rick’s words, Daryl grabbed his friend’s other hand and squeezed it. “I’d never be ashamed of you. It’s just late, ‘n I’m tired.”

“Too tired to get off?”

“Too tired to keep fuckin’ the hell outta your sweet little ass, maybe. Shit.”

Rick slid a thigh between Daryl’s legs, and Daryl opened up to him, wrapping his arms around his friend and cradling him between his legs as Rick slid atop him and pinned him down sweetly.

“You wanna go to sleep now, or you want me ta make you come?”

“How ‘bout if I just lay here and quiver while you fuck _my_ ass now?” Daryl suggested with a smirk.

Rick was only too happy to oblige, and when they’d finally emptied themselves into and onto each other, and the rough and sweaty work of lovemaking had subsided, they fell sound asleep tangled in each other’s arms. Knowing that for tonight at least, there would be no nightmares, and _this_ , at last, was home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What a long, strange trip it's been! Thanks so much to those of you who've joined me on this journey--your lovely words of encouragement kept me going! I loved writing this, and will miss it, but all good things must come to an end. I think my favorite chapters to write were Roadside Zoo, Operation Snow White and Bitch Ain't Singin'. If you had a particular favorite to read, I'd love to hear about it. Please let me know what you think about my wrap-up, and about the story as a whole. Parts you loved, hated, stuff you'd like to read more of? Looking forward to Feb. 14!
> 
> * The quote at the beginning is from the song Pancho & Lefty, lyrics by Townes Van Zandt, as sung by Willy Nelson, Emmylou Harris and others. I do not own The Walking Dead, or these characters, and a number of scenes in this story and some dialog were taken from or adapted from the show.


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